Preface

Writing a preface to your work is a little like having to explain yourself: "What I meant was..." Karen suggested I talk about my reasons for writing CAT TALES, and for doing the zine. I said: "That'll take about a paragraph."

I wrote the original story as a birthday gift, never intending to go any farther. The idea came from two people almost simultaneously - Karen and Bert (and I thank them both). The impetus came from the death of a beloved cat - Beelzy's prototype. Thus, writing these stories became a sort of therapy for me. Once I realized that "Cat Tales" had spawned a universe, I thought seriously about putting the collected stories together in zine form as a way of ensuring that they would be read in order and as a whole. I was also vain enough to want to see them illoed.

Quite a few people have asked for references. I couldn't hope to provide a comprehensive list of sources or inspirations, but I am happy to share with you all some very basic titles:

The Spiral Dance - Starhawk

The White Goddess - Graves

The Masks of God: Creative Mythology - Campbell

The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology - Campbell

Witchcraft Today - Gardner

Messages from Michael - Yarbro

Celtic Myth and Legend - Squire

The Mabinogion (There are quite a few translations of this work. A particularly attractive volume is available from Dragon's Dream, translated by Gwyn Jones and Thomas Jones and beautifully illustrated by Alan Lee.)

Other inspiration was provided by: Robin of Sherwood (both of them, but Praed's Robin in particular), Moonheart - Charles DeLint, The Horse Goddess & Bard - Morgan Llywelyn, The Mists of Avalon - Bradley, the works of Charles Williams and JRR Tolkien (of course).

A painfully funny work by Edward Gorey called "The Unstrung Harp or: Mr. Earbrass Writes a Novel" which kept me going. The music of Alan Stivell, Silly Wizard, Bowzabella, Clannad, The Chieftains, Kitaro, Julia Ecklar, Mannheim Steamroller, W.A.

Mozart & J.S. Bach. And, last but not least, the Boys.

Finally, the dedications: To Karen - thanks for the help, the advice, the ego-boo...you know. To all my fellow travellers - we may not walk the same path, but we are moving ahead. To Rusty who has filled an empty space. And to Sandy - nothing is forgotten.

Fanny
Beltaine 1986

---

Editorial

I see Fanny has left me a mere half page in which to write my editorial - bloody typical, that. If she weren't such a damn fine writer...

Well. It's done. Finally. Didn't think it would be, about 2 months ago, when hardly any of the artwork was done, and there were still 7 stories to write, but everyone came through. And I have to say; that I have never been so excited about any other zine I've produced. I love CAT TALES - I hope all of you will too. And that you'll write and tell us what you thought of it - whether you loved it, hated it, or were just confused by it. (Don't ask Fanny to explain anything, though, because it's useless. I know. I've tried.) Many many thanks are due our artists - Pat Cash, TACS and Karen Eaton.

There was another artist but I forget the name - Jean somebody.

Many apologies are due all the Library members and my correspondents who have been virtually ignored for the last two months - I'll catch up on everything soon, honest!

And since Fanny listed her inspirations, it's only fair to list mine - for making the editing, the typing, proofreading, correcting, etc. much easier, my thanks to Alan Stivell, Silly Wizard, Blowzabella, Mannheim Steamroller (is all this sounding familiar?), and Clannad, for providing me with lovely music that made all the scut work more bearable. Visually this zine was put together in front of Knightriders, Robin of Sherwood, various Professionals episodes, and many baseball games. Fanny threatened me that if I mentioned the Cubs she'd hit me and not be my friend anymore, so I said I wouldn't mention them. The Cubs, that is.

There isn't much point in doing an actual masthead, since all the production work was done by just the two of us, but I do want to mention our printers, Express Press of Glen Ellyn, and say thank you for doing such a lovely job on such short notice.

Enough of this rambling - there's a zine to read here. I hope you like it.

I hope you enjoy the more unusual aspects of these stories. I hope you understand at least some of it! And I hope you'll let us know what you felt/thought/experienced as you read it.

Karen Brandl

---

Cat Tales

When I joined CI5 I was told I'd eventually be partnered, and would work as half of a team from then on. That wasn't so much a surprise as a disappointment, since I'd hoped to work solo. I'm not much for deferring to another bloke when the result might cost me my life, and even when I was in the military, even when I was in Africa, when you worked with the team or you didn't last long (professionally in the former case and literally in the latter) I was always sure that number one, me, Bodie, was the one I looked out for first. That's my law of survival - make sure Bodie okay, then worry about the others. Anyway, that's the way the others worked too. I mean, it 's the way the world works, right? So the sooner you learn the rule, the longer you'll live.

Well, I talked meself blue in the face, and that mean bugger Cowley nodded and smiled like he agreed with every word I said and then informed me that I was to report of Neddy Bastable (the Bastard, they called him) at seven o' clock Monday morning to meet my new partner, one Raymond Doyle, and to begin training as a team. I was not amused.

I was there, feeling apprehensive and very wide-awake, when my new 'partner' strolled in at two minutes to seven, looking like he'd only just rolled out of bed. In fact, he resembled nothing more than an unmade bed, all rumpled curls and dreadful clothes, and a battery-driven shaver buzzing away in his left hand like a nest of angry bees. "Hullo," he said, "you Bodie, then?"

I gave him my most disdainful look and nodded. "'Ave I time for a cup of coffee?"

The Bastard came up behind him. "You're not going to have time for anything, my son," he told Doyle rather unpleasantly, "not for a long, long time."

"Then maybe I should use the bog now," Doyle commented, switching off the razor and smiling seraphically. He disappeared for a few minutes, and when he came back he was clad in a black t-shirt, which did nothing for him, and a pair of ratty old jeans, which left nothing to the imagination. He went beyond sexy, this one, right to fantasy. By rights he should have been ugly, with a round battered face and messy golden-brown curls, but he had beautifully expressive green eyes, a mouth that begged to be not just kissed but devoured, and an air about him that made you think he was easily the most gorgeous creature on the face of the earth. He also had a walk that was nothing short of immoral. In fact, I found that each time he walked away from me I was in real danger of exposing some of my less orthodox preferences. My first impression of him as the original well-used bed was quickly being replaced by one of Ray Doyle as something well used in a well-used bed.

I had to admit, by the end of the day, that my apprehension was unwarranted in the area of Doyle's incompetence. He was nothing if not razor sharp and very well trained. He was a smart bugger and he knew it, but what I found most unnerving was the air of independence about him that seemed to say, 'I accept you as my partner because I choose to, but should I change my mind, you're out.' He reminded me of my mum's old cat, Marmalade Sam, the most independent little monster on four legs. Funny I should think of Sam after all these years. Anyway, after the first day of learning (or trying to learn) to think of Doyle as a sort of appendage to myself, I was wondering if it wouldn't be better just to pack it in and head back to Angola. It wasn't that I disliked him, mind, but he made me uneasy. I had the feeling he already knew what was going on in my mind, and that it amused him tremendously. It's not I minded him knowing - I'm not shy about asking for what I want, but I didn't like being treated with amused tolerance.

I was on my way to my car when I heard a whistle. I turned and there was Doyle, leaning against the building, studying me in that way he had. "Fancy a drink?" he asked.

"Don't answer to whistles, " I said, turning away rather against my will because there was something compelling about that skinny figure draped so artistically against the wall. Then there was a low wolf-whistle that stopped me in my tracks and made me grain despite myself. "Fancy anything else, 'andsome?" He was very close to me and I wondered how he'd got there without my hearing him. Again I thought of Sam and shook my head, realizing that somehow, during the exhausting day we'd put in, Doyle had managed to make me believe we were partners. He'd not only made me accept him, but also made me feel something for him that I couldn't quite identify. All the same I was comfortable with him. Nice, that.

"What 'ave you in mind?" I asked, as he fell into step beside me.

"Chicken and chips?"

I would have guessed fish, but perhaps that was because I kept having this mental image of Marmalade Sam hunched over my uncle's aquarium.

So that was the end of my objections to being partnered, though I did - from time to time - complain about having to watch Doyle's back when I should be guarding my own. "What is it I'm supposed to do, then?" he'd ask, cool as anything. Truth was, I trusted him to guard my back almost from the beginning. What worried me was I was feeling protective, and that's deadly.

Start worrying about someone else and they become a liability, don't they.

But Doyle inspired something in me that I thought myself incapable of. And so we worked together, coming to think as one person, to trust each other...and in my case at least, to love.

Oh, from time to time I though about tripping him. Sometimes it seemed he'd welcome an advance, and I wove elaborate plots to bring him into my bed. I passed many dull hours thinking about seducing him. And they lived happily ever after...

But other times I saw something in Ray that warned me off. It wasn't so much the 'look-but-don't-touch' feeling he gave off at times; that was an open invitation to storm the bastions if one dared. No, it was something deeper, something troubling. I could never quite put my finger on it, but it was something, which kept me firmly in my place. I could work with him, and I could care about him, but I couldn't go the last yard - I couldn't make him a part of myself.

And so passed three years of one of the more successful partnerships in CI5.

Then in early Spring of 1980 something went wrong with each of us. Ray began to seem restless, as though he expected something nasty to happen, but he wouldn't tell me what it was. He's an independent sort, like I said, and handles his troubles on his own, never asking for sympathy or help from anyone. This wasn't the first time he'd acted this was, but just once I wished he'd let me help. It's not like I had designs on his virtue either, because I reckoned that path was closed to me. Maybe I was being selfish because I wanted him to know how much I cared about him and I thought this was the only way I could let him know. But just to be able to say to him, 'Why don't you tell me about it? Want to talk about it?' and have him lean on me a little...that'd be bloody wonderful; make me feel like I'm doing for him what he does for me, make me feel like I'm giving him something valuable.

As for me, well it had been a bad year. Marikka was gone and I found it hard not to blame myself. She'd been a bright spot in my life - seeing her there still and empty drained the joy out of me. And there was no one I could turn to, really. Ray couldn't have understood what it was I'd lost - what I was mourning. I barely understood it myself.

I let it eat at me, and I guess I let it eat at our relationship as well because I began to feel as though there was no 'us' any longer. We felt further apart that Spring than we had on the day we met.

I came through in one piece, thought there were some who thought otherwise for a time - Kate Ross most notably. Wasn't all that sure about me and Doyle though. After the King Billy business, after all the loose ends were tied up, Ray became more remote than ever. As a working partner he was beyond reproach. As a friend...well, I've had enemies I've felt closer to.

We carried on seemingly much as before, though not really connecting.

Then he asked the Cow for a week off. Odd thing is, Cowley told me, not Doyle. I had to find out from our boss that my partner asked for leave for 'health reasons'. I didn't like that one little bit, and stormed out of the office, conveniently not hearing Cowley ordering me to leave Doyle alone to work out his problems for himself. Silly old sod, did he really believe I could do that?

I raced over to Doyle's and leaned on the buzzer for what seemed like hours before I had the idea that maybe he wasn't home. I looked for the car he was using this month and saw it parked a little way down from the corner.

He was hoe, but he wasn't answering. All right, I thought, maybe he needs help; I'd better rush to the rescue. I let myself in with my key.

This time it was Doyle who wasn't amused. "What the hell do you want?" he demanded. He was sitting on the sofa, all curled up and scowling, his eyes glittering like an angry cat's.

"Thought you might need some help," I offered. It was lame, but I didn't care. He looked feverish. "You okay?"

"No...yes."

"No or yes?"

"Both. I'm coming down with something, I think, but nothing serious; nothing I haven't been through before."

"Catching?"

"Nah. Don't worry."

"Then I'll stay." I sat down at the opposite end of the sofa and we stared at each other for a few minutes. "Ray, why won't you tell me what's bothering you?"

He tipped his head sideways and looked at me for a long moment in a cool, measuring way. "What do you think the problem is?" he asked in a voice so low I could barely hear it.

I thought about the question for a while. "I think it's this business with King Billy." I blurted out, fastening on the thing that had seemed to precipitate this mess.

To my surprise, he chuckled. It was a mirthless sound, and not at all what I'd expected. "You're right, of course. You know me pretty well, Bodie."

It couldn't be that easy, though. With Ray, it was never that easy. "And,"

I prompted.

"And?"

"Don't you want to talk about it? You can't forgive me, can you?"

"No." Impossibly blunt.

"I see," I lied. "Well, perhaps I'd better push off, then. You going away for the week?"

"Yeh."

"See you in a week, then," I said, preparing to let myself out.

"Bodie, I lied. If there was anything to forgive, I'd do it. It's not you, it's me," he offered as a not-very-successful sop to my hurt feelings.

What an ass I am. And it gets worse.

About three days later, I was driving by his flat...accidentally on purpose, and I saw his car sitting outside, so I decided to stop and ask him out for a drink. He couldn't still be moping, and if he was, well, I'd soon pull him out of it. What are friends for, after all?

This time I just used my key, ringing only to tell him I was on my way up (little code we use - saves us no end of frustration where birds are concerned)), but when I entered the flat I found no sign of him. The flat had a musty, sour sort of smell, as though it had been shut up for several days, which apparently it had. As I was looking around I noticed two large bowls on the floor - one half full of water and the other with a little dry food in it. Then I noticed the source of the sour smell - a well-used litter box in the bathroom. Doyle didn't have a cat last time I was here...did he?

Well, he had one now, judging by the state of the litter. I cleaned out the box, wondering why I bothered to do this for the invisible cat of my ungrateful partner...and remembering Marmalade Sam; how he used to wind around my legs whenever I fed him. So I went into the kitchen and put out fresh water and refilled the food bowl. Why the hell hadn't Doyle asked me to come over and take care of his sodding cat? His sodding invisible cat?

"Puss?" I called. "Puss? Here kitty..."

A big, ginger-coloured tomcat strolled out of the bedroom and stretched luxuriously about a foot away from where my hand was extended to him. He looked at me for a moment, head tilted to the side, and I was reminded of Doyle giving me the same sort of look a few days before.

The cat marched past me, ignoring the hand of friendship, and into the kitchen, where he ate a few bites and drank a little water. Then he brushed against my legs once and ran into the bedroom. I followed him, fascinated by this ginger-puss with green-green eyes.

He'd jumped up onto the bed and was rolling around in the rumpled duvet in what would have been open invitation had he been human. I noticed, as I sat down on the side of the bed, that the duvet cover had been torn and chewed.

"Raymond won't like that, puss," I said, stroking the soft fur on his belly.

Curtains were shredded, too. In fact, there were bits of material scattered all over the bedroom. Looked as if ginger-puss had had a wild few days of it. He was rolling around, purring just as loud as he could, when suddenly he gave me a bloody great nip on the wrist and took off like a bat out of hell. Cats are such bloody-minded, perverse little sods. Why the hell are they so appealing?

"Halloween give you ideas, did it?" I called after him, knowing sarcasm wouldn't be lost on a subtle creature like a cat. Dogs you can insult 'til you turn blue and they still try to drool all over you.

No, Ray wasn't going to be at all happy about the mess. I lay back against the pillows, one of which leaking feathers at an alarming rate, and saw that the mirror on the dresser opposite the bed had been cracked, and everything on the dresser was broken or scattered. I sighed, wondering what would become of the cat when Ray discovered the damage. He wasn't the type to take kindly to his things being destroyed, but then, he wasn't the type to keep a cat either. This was very odd. Perhaps the cat belonged to a friend. But that couldn't be right either - why would someone leave a cat with someone who wasn't going to be home for a week?

"'Sn't your business, old son," I reminded myself. I knew I should leave, but somehow being here, in this quiet (and nearly demolished) flat made me feel closer to Ray than I'd felt in a long time. The remains of the pillow had a strong scent of Doyle on it, and without thinking, I pulled it up over my face and breathed in the scent of him - aromatic wood, citrus and musk.

Talk about your aphrodisiacs! I knew I should stop, but it was so tempting to pretend he was here with me that I shut my eyes and went on pretending.

The path may have been closed, but there was no reason why I shouldn't explore it in my dreams.

I could almost feel him in my arms, feel him against me, and I found that my trousers were becoming uncomfortably tight across the crotch. Oh Christ, I wasn't going to jerk off in Ray's bed! But then I though, what was the difference? I'd do it with a bird, pretending that it was Ray moving against me, Ray I was entering, filling...possessing. So I slid my zip down and wrapped my hand around myself, not bothering to make it any more than a quick, joyless, almost furtive climax. I pulled the pillow away from my face and tossed it on the floor. And I felt more alone than I'd ever felt in my life.

I wasn't though. Somehow, in the middle of that lurid little tragi-comedy, ginger cat had managed to leap up on the foot of the bed without attracting my attention. He was watching me with a look that spoke of tolerant, even affectionate amusement.

"Meow!" he said, very loud.

"I'm glad you think so," I replied, cleaning myself with some tissues I found in the cabinet beside the bed.

"Grrrowowol." He stalked up and sat beside me, watching my hand mopping up the evidence, and the light in his eyes made me tuck my cock back into my cords and zip up quickly. I was not about to be mistaken for a slightly limp mouse!

Then he stepped up onto my stomach. "Hey," I said, by way of protest, but he glared down at me with those familiar green eyes and I gave in to the inevitable once again.

"Mrrrrowp," he commented as he danced on my chest, making starfish paws.

Then he settled down, his nose nudging my chin, and began to purr. Was nice, that. And I didn't feel so alone anymore. I decided, as I began to fall asleep, that if Doyle was going to get rid of ginger-cat, I'd take him.

The smell of food woke me. I stumbled out to the kitchen and found Doyle frying bacon and eggs. "When did you get in?" I asked, feeling muzzy and disorientated.

"About four this morning. Have some juice."

"What's the time?"

"Gone nine. I called in and told them you'd be late."

"Wasn't due until noon anyway," I told him, settling leadenly into a cold chair. "Where's the cat?" I asked, missing my new friend.

Doyle gave me a brief, unreadable look. "Out. He wanted to go so I let him."

"I didn't know you had a cat."

"I don't," he explained, filling two large plates and putting them on the table. "I took him in the day I went away. He was cold and wanted to stay, so I left him here. Judging from the state of things, that was a mistake.

It's better he's gone."

I felt unaccountably forlorn. "I liked him," I said, sounding a bit sulky.

"Go and buy a kitten; stay away from strays like that," he advised. "They have nasty habits."

"Well, they like company too, don't they? He didn't hurt anything while I was here."

"Except your wrist," Doyle added.

"Yeh. 'Ere, how'd you know that?"

"He told me," Ray said, very sarky. "I see the bite mark, Bodie. Unless you've a kinky new bird with tiny incisors, I'd say it was Beelzy."

"Beelzy?"

"Beelzebub. My own personal devil."

"Me mum 'ad one like him," I said, tucking into breakfast, wondering where Beelzy was now. I missed him. "Called him Marmalade Sam."

Beelzy didn't come back. When Ray moved house I felt sort of sorry because I was sure we'd never see the old reprobate again. Funny, afterglow was never better than with Beelzy.

After that, things were better between us. It was as if we had found our way back to the way we'd been. Then Ray fell in love.

It was hard to stand by and watch. It was hard for me to think of losing him, but how do you lose something you've never had? Christ but I hated that woman! Oh, there was nothing wrong with Ann - I would have hated anyone, man or woman, who claimed the piece of Ray I coveted - his heart.

In the end, of course, they parted, and Ray didn't seem any the worse for the experience.

I was occasionally aware of him wrestling with some problem or other, but since he never asked for my help, I never offered it. From time to time he went off by himself for a few days, and each time he told me in advance so I wouldn't have to have the news from Cowley. Thoughtful. Each time he came back, he seemed more relaxed than when he left. I puzzled over that one for a while, but eventually set it down to one of Ray's little idiosyncrasies and forgot it as best I could.

Spring arrived and he seemed happy about it, even suggestion that we take a week's leave and go away somewhere. It was rare for us to plan a quiet weekend like this - no birds, no real plans to speak of. Made me feel good to know that Ray still enjoyed my company enough to go on holiday with me.

I was quite flattered by the attention, so I let him choose the place - which was the New Forest - and the time, which was around the first of May.

He was very insistent, but when I questioned him, he just said, "Humour me, Bodie." Strewth, I would've gone anywhere.

We motored down on the twenty-ninth, stopping at a place Ray chose, a little inn called The Dancing Maiden. "You're lucky you called, Ray," the innkeeper told him as he signed the register. "We're booked up now. All I can give you is a double." He was a tall solid man with white hair and glasses.

"That's fine, John," Ray assured him. He had a quirky little smile playing around the corners of his mouth, that the innkeeper seemed suddenly to catch.

"Glad to be of service. Breakfast tomorrow?"

"Upstairs?"

"About nine?"

"Ten."

"You know where the room is," John told him, dangling a key from his forefinger. Ray took the key and turned to lead me upstairs, when he was ambushed from behind by a round, jolly-looking woman.

"Ray Doyle!" she exclaimed in a rich alto voice. "Don't you dare sneak off without giving me a kiss - it's not friendly."

"Ah, Janie me darlin', and in front of your husband too?" He slid his arms around her ample, motherly figure and kissed her on the mouth, making her giggle.

"I always did say that next to my Johnnie you were the best kisser in England." She smoothed her apron. "And who is this?"

"This is Bodie, my partner and very special friend."

"Oh," she said, as if this explained something I had yet to catch. She and her husband were looking at me very strangely, almost glowing with a sort of parental approval. I felt like the boy-friend being considered as potential husband material, and wanted to assure them I'd always take good care of their little Raymond, supporting him in the manner to which he was accustomed. "Well, in that case, I'd better get back to the kitchen and make a proper supper for the two of you. You look hungry."

"She means we're too skinny." Ray whispered to me, just loud enough to be heard.

"No, lad, I mean you're too skinny. Your friend is just right. A good solid man who doesn't break when well-used."

"Oh, I'm counting on that," Ray said, starting up the stairs. His remark rattled me so much I forgot to admire the view as I followed him.

"Ahmmm, Ray?"

He was opening the door. "Hmmm?" He didn't turn around, but continued on into a whitewashed, beamed room untouched by time since...Nell Gwynne and Charles romped here, no doubt.

"Nice room," I observed, forgetting for a moment what I had meant to say.

Ray reminded me.

"Nice bed, eh?"

"You've been here before." I hoped he'd feel like elaborating, which he did, a little.

"Oh yeh, many times. I come here to get away from it all."

"Come here when you...ah..." How to ask about something he'd never really told me?

"Yes, I do now."

I was feeling very depressed suddenly, and I sat down on the side of the bed. Ray stood beside the wardrobe where he had been stowing our gear, and looked at me for a few moments. Then he sat beside me.

"After we have dinner, I'll tell you all about myself, okay?"

"I'm not prying," I told him, with real feeling.

"Didn't say you were, did I, sunshine? C'mon then, let's eat." He grabbed my hand and hauled me up and out of the room.

Janie had done us a nice late supper of salmon, wild mushrooms with the taste of the Forest - dark and mysterious, a salad that tasted as though it had been fresh-picked, and a bottle of wine without a label. Was delicious.

"Chateau Jane?"

"John. Hobby," Ray explained.

"Have you known them long?" I asked, feeling unaccountably awkward.

"Several years. They're nice, aren't they?"

What I wanted to say was that Ray seemed too nice. This place, the people...Ray...it all seemed too perfect, as though the moment I relaxed it would all be snatched away from me again.

It never pays to anticipate.

"We've had a better year," Ray remarked, jerking me out of my musings.

"Better than the one before, I mean. I think things happen in cycles, don't you?"

"Mmm?" I hadn't the vaguest notion what he was on about, but I loved listening to him when he was so terribly serious and philosophical.

"What I mean is - life has good things and bad things and sometimes it's more of one than another - long stretches, I mean."

"That's luck, sunshine," I told him, spearing the last of his mushrooms and popping them into my mouth.

"Nah, I don't believe that. I think this sort of thing has to do with cycles. The way you feel is cyclical, innit?"

"If you say so."

He grinned. "Stop me if I'm boring you."

"Often infuriating, never dull," I told him. "I like listening to your natterings. Makes me feel so superior."

We were not alone in the Common Room - there was a group of people singing near the fire, and a few other couples sharing bottles of Chateau Dancing Maiden. Felt nice, cosy. I almost told Ray I loved him, but fortunately the wine hadn't been quite potent enough to make me forget the proprieties.

I looked across the table at him, into those gorgeous green eyes, and for a moment I saw Beelzy grinning back at me.

"I wonder what happened to him?" I said, feeling sleepy and affectionate.

"Who?"

"Beelzy. I liked him. I wanted to take him home," I explained. Ray hauled me to my feet and steered me upstairs. I could have sworn that everyone in the Common Room wished us a good night and sweet dreams, but then I wasn't taking much in.

"Maybe you still can."

"That'd be nice - have a pet, nice kitty." We made it up the stairs, arms around each other. "You know I love you," I said as he fumbled with the key. Oh oh, Chateau D.M. claims another innocent victim. Drunk on one bottle of wine - I'd never live this down!

"Of course I do. I love you too, Bodie. That's why I brought you here."

I didn't quite understand the last bit, but he'd said he loved me too - what more could I ask for?

He'd finally got the door open and we fell through it, laughing madly. Ray shut the door. "You get in bed. I want to do a couple of things first," he ordered. So I stripped and climbed into the big old bed while he rummaged around in a bedside cabinet. What he found in there was a handful of deep-rose-coloured candles, which he placed all around the room, lighting them as he went. It made a handsome room absolutely beautiful, and made Ray almost unbearably so. By their light he turned golden. I felt something prickle behind my eyelids - Christ, to love someone so much...I slid down under the covers and noticed that while we were at supper someone had tied bunches of greenery to each of the bedposts and had pinned one to the headboard. I looked more closely - mistletoe! If what I was feeling had left any room for embarrassment, I would have been in agony, but just then my heart was very full, and it hurt a little. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to sleep, but Ray hauled the duvet down to the foot of the bed.

"'S cold!" I protested.

"I started a fire. You won't need the duvet," he promised.

"Ray..." I began, but he had begun to undress and I was bewitched by his performance, so unconsciously sensual and so provocative. Then I had to roll away to lie on my side so he couldn't see the effect he was having o me.

I felt the bed dip as he lay down. "This isn't a tease, you know," he whispered in my ear, then bit it gently. "I love you, Bodie. I brought you here to share the dance with me. Don't turn away from love."

Dear God, I thought, all my dreams come true at once. It was too much and I gasped as he ran his hands down my back, turning me gently to face him. I couldn't think of anything to do.

"You do want me, don't you?" He smelled wonderful - even the air smelled wonderful, full of musk and rose and patchouli.

"Yes," I managed, and would have said more, but his mouth covered mine then, and it was so sweet I thought I'd die of it. For a time I couldn't do much more but lie still and let him make love to me. He did it with great skill; but more, he did it with feeling, and I found myself returning his passion very freely.

I think that was the sweetest night of my life.

I woke up slowly, without the usual start of disorientation I have when I've slept in a strange place. Ray was curled up beside me, one leg thrown across mine. My Beelzy-Marmalade-Sam-ginger-can. Silly though, but nice.

The candles had all burned down to nothing as had the fire, but the morning light was pouring through the windows, passing through bevelled panes and hanging bits of crystal to make rainbows on the walls and ceiling. The spring breeze smelled faintly of flowers over a darker, more primal scent of earth and decay. A reminder, I though, turning carefully lest I wake Ray.

On the sill of one of the windows there was a deep pink cyclamen.

"Cyclamen in the bedroom window ensures a long and happy union," Ray said into my back.

"You a mind-reader now, as well?"

"As well as what?" He asked, climbing up to drape himself on top of me.

"As well as my beloved," I said, feeling romantic and silly.

"Oh good."

We kissed for a long time, and then there was a knock at the door. "It's gone ten, lads," came Janie's reminder from the hall. "Time for breakfast."

Before we could answer, she was in the room, bustling around, clearing up candle stumps. "Have to buy more of these," she said to herself. "Did they work then?"

"Oh, they worked," Ray assured her. "Perfectly." I was trying to pull the duvet up to cover myself and my early morning response to Ray's kisses, but it was all tangled around out legs and my wriggling made the tangle worse instead of better. Ray seemed unconcerned both by his nakedness and his erection.

She came over to the bed and kissed us both. "Welcome to the family," she said to me. Then she shook her head and smiled. "Oh, the sight and smell of young men takes me back..." She patted a wisp of red-brown hair into place and hurried out of the room, leaving me almost breathless with the force of her presence.

"Isn't she lovely?" Ray asked as he rolled on top of me again. He was moving in sweet, languid thrusts against me, each movement less a means to an end than an exquisite sensation in itself.

"She doesn't mind?"

"Two men? No, nobody here will. Love you," he whispered against my mouth.

"Love you, love you..."

Perfect way to start the day.

Over breakfast in our room, I finally felt brave enough to ask.

"Why?"

"What?"

"Why now? Why me? Why here? I don't understand the whys of all this."

I expected him to be evasive, to make excuses. I expected him to rationalize away all those years I'd spend in the throes of unrequited love.

But he just smiled rather sadly.

"Why you? Couldn't have been anyone else, Bodie. No one else is a part of me the way you are. Why here? I feel safe here. I thought you might, too.

Why now? Why not before, you mean, don't you? Well, I did know you loved me before this. I also know you wanted me from the first."

"I thought you might have known," I admitted as I buttered a muffin to cover my nervousness.

"That might have been easy; we could have scratched that itch - I felt it too, Bodie," he confessed. "I've wanted you for a long time.

"But a year ago, I realized how very much I'd come to love you and it frightened me. What began as a determination to keep our relationship professional footing became almost a mania. All my arguments on why sex and business, or sex and friendship, won't mix were made inconsequential by the thing I found myself fighting."

"You needn't have on my account," I said wryly, mourning the lost years.

"That still doesn't answer the question why now?"

"I suppose because I'm ready to love you. I don't fear it any longer. I don't fear myself as much, and I know I needn't fear your reaction. I've known for a year now that you love me. It only wanted the right moment to happen."

"A year ago?" Why then, I wondered. "What happened a year ago? What did I do?"

"I have something to tell you, Bodie, and I don't know how you're going to take it."

My appetite fled. I put down the muffin I was about to bite into and wiped my mouth. "Tell me, then. Don't make me nervous with waiting."

"Okay." He put his fork down. "Straight out, then. You know I've got some sort of health problem that crops up from time to time. What you don't know is that it...oh hell, I don't know how to explain this."

"Just say it!" I demanded, feeling almost sick with anticipation.

"It doesn't have anything to do with my health really. It has to do with Beelzy. I'm Beelzy."

"What?" I felt like laughing, it was so outside of anything I could have anticipated. It was a good joke, if a little unorthodox.

"I'm a werecat."

"Oh yeh, and I'm Dracula. See the bite marks?" I asked, pointing to his neck and chest. "Very funny, Ray."

"It's not funny, Bodie, and it's the truth."

"Well, come to think of it, I never saw you and Beelzy together," I said with heavy sarcasm. The unnerving thing is that on a visceral level I already knew he had spoken truth. I'd always known that Ray Doyle was an odd 'un.

"I reckoned you wouldn't believe me right off. Do you remember that bite mark he gave you?"

"Yeah, and you saw the mark, you said so yourself. Pull the other one, Raymond my love." I sipped my coffee, wondering what was coming next.

"Do you remember what you did in my bed?" he asked and I felt myself go scarlet.

"What do you mean?"

"That was the first time I realized you loved me as much as I loved you."

"Oh, Christ..."

"I didn't want to upset you..."

Upset? He turns my life upside down and all he can call it is upset? My first response was anger - how could he do this to me...to us? Warring with a fading hope that this was all some elaborate joke.

"Well thanks, but you seem to have done it."

"You had to know because it's going to happen again...tonight."

"What?!?" I was on my feet in a second. All I could think of was the old adage: 'When in danger, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout'.

It seemed like great wisdom just then.

"Bodie, sit down and listen to me, please?" He was looking forlorn, which I find irresistible, so I abandoned my incipient hysteria and sat.

"Okay, okay, I'm listening."

"A long time ago, my family were witches in Ireland." That wasn't hard to believe, I decided. "One of them was a shape-shifter and a healer, and on Midsummer Eve he was out in the fields celebrating and he couldn't be found to help a man who had been injured or something...this is all old family history and probably not quite accurate," he admitted. "Anyway, the man died cursing him; said something like may he and his children be trapped forever in their damned magic. So it was passed down in the family, usually affecting only one of two in a generation. I'm that one.

"I thought for a while it was something I was going to be able to control - I mean, it happened a lot when I was growing up, adolescent stuff, you know?

But Mum helped me through it; she'd seen it happen to her favourite sister, and knew the stories and all. It didn't happen at all while I was in art school, and only once when I was a copper, so I really thought it was over, that maybe I was going to be the one to beat it at last. Mum tells me she thinks it's dying out, but she doesn't quite know why.

"But last May I started feeling that way again." His face was shadowed, half turned away from me. "I wanted to tell you, Bodie, but I didn't know how. It's a rotten thing to spring on your mate. Hey, how about a beer and by the way I'm going to change into a cat in a few minutes - just so you won 't be too alarmed...So I asked for leave, a week because I honestly didn't know how long it would take, and locked myself in. The reason Beelzy tore up the bedroom was because he couldn't get out to hunt, and that's what he wants to do more than anything. It's strongest on the eve of a festival."

"How often does this happen?" I asked, realizing that I believed him almost wholeheartedly. The logical side of me still wanted to actually see him change.

"Seems to be linked to the old festivals - Samhain, the solstices and such.

Tonight is May Day Eve and I'm feeling strange. It's gonna happen tonight, Bodie. The people here know about me, they know my family. They're like me."

"Cats?" I asked, stupidly.

Ray began to laugh. "No, you dumb crud, followers of the old ways. They understand. I could have told you back in London, but then I thought, well, Beltaine is so special to lovers - " At which I blushed. " - I decided to bring you here to share the Beltaine fires with me...to dance the dance with me." He moved forward and I saw that feverish look in his eyes again. He laid a cool hand on my arm. "Please say you still care, Bodie," he begged.

"You great idiot," I growled, pulling him out of his chair to sit on my lap, "I don't just care, I love you. I don't care if you become a cat every Monday afternoon, just as long as you make starfish paws on my chest and purr in my ear."

We sat there like that for a long time, just holding each other. It felt so good to hold him close, to give in to all those old protective urges which always seemed so silly with a proud, independent sort like Ray Doyle. He needed me. It felt wonderful.

And much later, he slid off my lap and pulled me back to the bed. His eyes were glittering again, and he had that feral look I sometimes saw in moments of great danger. I remembered suddenly that for all his agonizing over the job and the violence, he was a clever and almost casual killer. Ray Doyle was a hunter - there was more cat in his blood than he knew.

This time I was the prey, teased, played with and destroyed utterly...willingly. I was covered with bites and scratches by the time we finished, and was very, very sore, but it was one of the most intense climaxes of my life. For the first time in years, I let myself be taken by another man, and it was the most natural thing in the world.

"Bodie, I have to go," he whispered into my ear as I dozed. "Don't be afraid of what you see tonight, but don't try to follow me." His voice was raspy, sounding almost as if he was in the throes of passion, but with a note of something like fear or anger. I was trying to drag myself out of a sated, comfortable sleep, and as I turned over to face him, I heard a low moan that became the nerve-scraping noise cats make when you step on their tails. Then I saw something leap to the windowsill and disappear.

I was suddenly very wide-awake.

I dressed and went downstairs where everyone seemed to be in a flurry of activity. "Everything all right?" John asked me as he came through the Common Room with an armload of bottles.

"Oh yeh, fine, thanks."

"Where's Ray?"

"Ahhh...out somewhere."

He nodded. "Come and have a drink. He'll be gone for a bit." He set me up with a pint and had one himself. "Don't you worry, Bodie, Ray's a clever lad. He'll be back in time for the celebration too, though a handsome one like you wouldn't lack for partners tonight. My Jane 'as taken a fancy to you." He grinned and nudged me playfully, but I couldn't quite share in the ribald good spirits with Ray out in the Forest somewhere.

"Are there a lot of animals out there?" I asked. "Predators, I mean?"

"Not to worry," John repeated, and moved down the bar to take orders.

I wandered out and saw some men laying bonfires in a nearby field. I remembered Ray saying he wanted to share the fires with me, or something. I walked further, straying into the Forest. I guess in the back of my mind I was hoping to come across Ray, or Beelzy, and bring him home.

It was darker in there, and very beautiful. I followed a path dappled with afternoon sun. It stopped at an old oak tree and so did I. It was an inviting tree, overgrown on one side with mistletoe, its low branches hung with ribbons and flowers and things. It was obviously some sort of pet tree for the neighbourhood children. I climbed into the fork between the branches and found a perfect space in which to rest and think.

Oh, I had a lot to think about.

Now I knew Ray's story to be true, I had some adjusting to do. It wasn't going to be easy, but for Ray's sake I had to work at it. Hell, I stopped believing in magic a long time ago.

And then I thought - well, mum believed. Look what it got her - a bastard son and an early grave. No grave at all, I amended, since they'd never found her body. A child's image rose up, unbidden, to fill my eyes again - my mother, sad and lovely, floating Ophelia-like in the dirty fiver water.

There were flowers in her hair. Some of the old bitterness seeped out from behind all those locked doors in my head. I don't think I'd ever quite forgiven her for leaving me...or myself for letting her go.

I thought about Ray out here alone in the shape of a cat, and I was afraid for him and for myself. I knew I couldn't bear to lose him as I'd lost everyone else I'd loved. "Why can't anything ever, ever be easy?" I asked aloud.

The woods were silent. There was no answer to my question.

I watched the sun's light go from gold to red as it moved into the west.

From where I sat, I could see a piece of the western sky through the clearing. It was orange and pink and blue and violet and streaked with haloed pastel clouds. No wonder the ancients thought of the west as the land of the blessed.

I climbed down out of the tree and walked towards the clearing along a path that began on the other side of my oak. Just now, before nightfall, there was little noise, so the walk was peaceful, the sound of my own steps the only thing to disturb the silence. And so when the silence was broken by the crackling of leaves and branches, I was both apprehensive and hopeful.

Perhaps it would be Ray coming back to me.

I peered into the darkness beside the path but I couldn't distinguish anything. Still the crackling continued. I turned and began to walk back along the path towards the inn. It was foolish to have strayed out into the Forest despite Ray's assurance that there was nothing to fear in what I saw.

He meant the, ah, supernatural (still difficult to accept) rather than concrete danger from the animals that lived here...real animals, not just occasional ones.

I was thinking very hard about the difference, when on the path in front of me about twenty yards ahead, I saw a man step out of the trees. He was tall and slender and naked, and his hair was dark, long and curly. When the light touched him, those curls gleamed copper. For a long time we stood and watched each other. Then he began to walk towards me. I noticed that there were tiny spring flowers twined in his hair...and then I saw the horns!

Small branching horns protruding from his thick curls.

I backed away without thinking and he stopped and studied me.

"Who are you?" I asked, feeling awfully stupid and very put upon. I was entirely out of my element with the supernatural.

He approached me again and this time I held my ground because there didn't seem much reason to run. When he was standing so close to me that I could smell him (earth smell and flowers and, unnervingly, blood) he began to sniff at me like an animal checking out a newcomer in his territory. He sniffed me all over, smiling all the while as if he approved of me in a way I had yet to fathom. He laid a hand on my groin and I felt the warmth of him through my clothes. My cock began to stir and he grinned. Then he touched my chest and again there was a sensation of heat.

"Great-heart," he whispered in an animal voice, then moved his hand to my head, running long fingers through my hair. He backed away. "Dance," he murmured, and then ran off into the trees.

I knew who He was, knew when He touched me the last time. I sank down onto the path and just sat there for a long time.

"Why are you alone?"

I looked up to find a girl standing over me. She was exquisite, and like the horned man, she was naked. "Have you no dancing partner?" she asked, kneeling beside me.

"I don't understand any of this," I confessed. Lord but she was a stunner!

She had long dark hair and pearly skin and small, perfect breasts. I could smell the female scent rising from her skin, from her breasts and between her legs and it did strange things to my mind. She had flowers in her hair, too. She touched my face, ran her fingers through my hair.

"Your partner is waiting for you at the fires," She told me. "Why do you wait for him here?"

Then I began to move. Like a child who is learning to walk, I crawled a few feet before I was able to stand up. I was shaky and unsteady on my feet.

Those touches had told me things I'd never have believed - words from my childhood: 'I believe in God the Father, maker of Heaven and earth...' And They'd touched me and suddenly the words made no sense any longer. Suddenly the truth of life was so vast I felt bowed under the weight of it. To be a part of all this - to feel the rhythm of life around me, to hear even the growing of the grass, the greening of the trees and the flowers blooming...to comprehend all of this in a single, bright moment. Too much, too much. I felt the tears running down my face.

There was a lot of strange noise in the Forest now, and it was very dark. I stumbled along, and when I had regained my equilibrium, I began to run. I ran out of the Forest and down the path towards the inn, seeing the fires burning in the field, and the silhouettes of many people against the flames.

The moon had risen, a luminous silver disc.

(Moon mother, I am your child - no laws but your can tame me) I was almost to the nearest bonfire when I heard a familiar 'mrrrowowl' to my right, and I stopped and looked for Beelzy. He was sitting on a stone, waiting for me, and beside him there was a dead bird. He picked the carcass up and brought it to me, depositing it delicately at my feet; then he wound himself around my legs. I reached down and picked him up and he rubbed his face against mine, purring like a mad thing.

"Who's a clever boy, then?" I asked him, scratching behind his ears. My voice was thin and shaky. He made starfish paws against my chest. At last I was in familiar company and I felt myself grow calmer.

I tucked him under my arm and picked up the bird, carrying them both into the field, stepping around interlocked couples, dancing couples, in all combinations. I set him down, the bird beside him, and I lay down in the grass. "I was worried about you," I told him as he stepped delicately onto my chest as he'd done that first time. There was blood on his fur, which he cleaned as best he could. Then we waited, a circle of two.

I must have fallen asleep in the heat from the fire. When I woke, though, I found that the weight of Beelzy seemed to have increased. Of course, Ray was back! I wrapped my arms around him and kissed him awake. "Hullo Beelzy," I said. He laughed softly.

"How long was I gone?"

"Eight hours or so. How do you feel?"

"Fine...horny." There was mischief in his eyes.

"Oh yes?" I lifted my head and looked around. Some couples were still at it, some were sleeping, and a few, like Jane and John, were on their way home, draped in flowers, arms around each other. "We seem to be in good company," I observed as those slender fingers began to remove my clothes.

"I want you, Bodie," he told me as he worked over me with mouth and hands.

It took very little effort to make me ready. "I want from you what you had from me earlier." He straddled me, guiding me into his body with one hand while the other moved restlessly across my chest. He looked like a forest god, head thrown back in ecstasy as he impaled himself on me, his own cock stiff against his belly. Little wisps of grass clung to his hair.

He took my hands and wrapped them around his cock, holding them, guiding them up and down while he moved atop me. All around us were the sounds of love being made, and we joined that chorus as we moved together in the oldest dance in the world. I felt blessed, felt loved at long last.

At first light I began to stir. It was cold now the fires ha died down and the dew was settling on us. Ray stretched and picked up the bird, muttered something I didn't catch, and threw the little body into the dying bonfire.

"What did you say?" I asked him as I gathered my clothes. We walked back to the inn, arms around each other's waists.

"I asked his soul's forgiveness and wished him Godspeed to his next life.

He gave this one to be a lover's gift."

We sank into clean sheets with sighs of contentment, and slept until noon, when Janie woke us with tea and toast and plum jam.

"It was a lovely night, wasn't it?" she asked. Ray made a purring sort of noise against my chest and refused to let go of me. "I'll just leave this for you. Mind you don't let it get cold." She left quietly.

"Come on, Ray." He chuckled, but wouldn't let go of me. "Ray, we can't stay like this forever."

"Why not?"

"I 'ave to use the bog for one thing," I replied causing him to laugh and release me.

"By all means," he said magnanimously, "let us not have an accident in bed."

I thought he was going to stay there, rolling around in the sheets making those little moaning noises of him as he stretched scratched himself - he's such an appealing little animal; but he got up and trotted after me. "Can I watch?"

"What?"

"While you pee, can I watch?" My mouth dropped open and he began to laugh.

"I love your body: I love everything about it."

"I just dried up."

He turned on the tap. "Shut your eyes and listen to the water. Forget about me."

It worked.

We ate the toast and drank the tea while we bathed together. This suddenly felt like forever, like a marriage, and I wanted desperately to say so, but I was afraid. I thought about I for a long time, and when we were towelling each other off I said, rather off-handedly, "We ought to get married."

"We are," Ray said, equally casual.

"Are we?"

"Don't you feel the bands? Haven't you felt them from the moment we met?"

Something in me knew he spoke the truth. We were...how to explain? We belonged to each other. It was as if we'd been born for each other.

Finally I understood that what we had was forever - had been, always would be. I offered a silent prayer of thanks to whatever god arranged these things.

Later we walked down the same path I'd taken the night before. We were holding hands.

"Ray, does the Cow know?" I asked, suddenly worried about mundane matters.

"God, no! Would you hire a cat?"

I shrugged. "Depends."

"You're partial. No, he thinks I have a mum with a bad heart who needs attention several times a year. The first time I told him it was my health problems, but I realized that if I had some recurring problem, he'd either sack me or demand I have meself checked out by a CI5 doctor. Mum'll cover for me. It's not easy, Bodie," he warned.

"Easier with me than without me, eh?"

"Yeh," he said, and he was smiling.

Funny thing is, it's easier for me, too. I'm not alone anymore.

--Beltaine 1980-81

---

Letting the Cat Out Of the Bag

The trip back to London was uncomfortable at best. Bodie was uncharacteristically silent, even withdrawn, and since they'd left The Dancing Maiden the weather had grown steadily worse. They had been driving through patches of rain and fog the whole way.

Ray thought he knew how Bodie must feel, the sense of disorientation at being thrust without preparation into a world that had previously been the stuff of fairy tales and myths. He remembered how, at fourteen, he'd suffered through Beelzy's first appearance. He remembered the loss of his Ray-ness in the power of the cunning little animal; nothing he'd ever seen of heard had prepared him for the annihilation...or the rebirth after a night he only vaguely recalled. He remembered waking with the taste of blood in his mouth.

He slowed the car as they encountered some particularly dense fog. For a few moments his depth perception was minimal, the white wall of fog reflecting his own headlamps back at him. Luckily they were almost alone on the road.

Time had put some of his experiences in perspective, he decided, able to divide his concentration once the fog lifted slightly. He was philosophical about his 'handicap', though he never deluded himself that the rest of the world would take the truth of his existence in stride. It had been hard enough with Bodie who loved him.

Loved him. The thought made Ray smile and glance over at the subject of his musing. Bodie lay back against the seat, his eyes shut. He was frowning slightly. "Bodie?"

"Mmmm?"

"You all right?"

"Just tired. This supernatural stuff takes the starch out." He said it lightly, but underneath there was tension.

"Home in a bit."

"Good." His silence was to be respected, Ray decided. When Bodie was ready to talk, he would. The rain began again, but as a light shower rather than the downpours they'd encountered earlier. Ray sighed and switched on the wipers.

As soon as he was able, he'd have to talk to his mother again. She'd want to know that he'd found love at last; enduring love, honest love...comfortable love. She could wish him no less, of course, but having made the mistake herself, she was unwilling to see her son carry his secret into a marriage, to know always the fear - which in her case had proved true - that a child born to him might carry that same secret, and its price, into another generation.

He remembered how, after Beelzy had first appeared, his mother sat at his side and tried her best to explain 'the curse'. How little he'd taken in that morning, almost mad with terror and self-loathing. He'd wanted to die and in fact had tried that afternoon to end his own life with several bottles of pills he found in the medicine cabinet. He only managed to make himself terribly ill.

The next day, when he was calmer, his mother had tried again to explain things to him. She told him how her sister had shared his affliction, and she spoke honestly about it, admitting that it was indeed a curse on the family, but that, if he was strong enough, he might be able to control it.

"You live with the uncertainty," she'd said, "or you work with what you have, or you die as my sister did. I can't see that last for you, Ray." He 'd been ashamed because he'd tried to do just that, tried to escape into death.

She'd spoken of other things, then, of the old ways and the Goddess and God, and he'd listened to her, forgetting his pain for a time. What she told him seemed familiar somehow, as if he'd known these things all his life, albeit unconsciously. He remembered his mother's face as she spoke, remembered how difficult the telling had been for her. "It's wrong to tell you these things," she said, suddenly. And Ray asked her, "Why?"

There was no answer that day, or indeed for many years afterwards. As Ray grew older, he learned that his family's heritage - its service to the Lord and Lady rather than to the Christian god - had been the thing, which destroyed his mother's marriage. He learned that his parents had married against the wishes of their r parents; his mother sixteen and his father nineteen. But once the enchantment of young love wore off, the differences between the two had been magnified until living together became almost intolerable. She found herself too proud and too pregnant to expect her parents to take her back and support her and her child; otherwise she would have turned her back on her husband and his family. She would have rejected their demands that she conform to their standards for the sake of her soul, and her son to be, and the good opinion of the neighbours. So she stayed with him and Ray was born, and soon after she realized that her pride had betrayed her. Now they threatened her with the loss of her child. A heathen woman was no fit mother, they told her, and over years of constant criticism and anger and threats she came to believe that they might be right. When Ray was six, she became a Catholic. And it was then she began to grow old.

Three years later her husband left her for another woman and was excommunicated for seeking a divorce. It was the cause of bitter laughter in their home in later years, but for a time she had continued to serve the Christian god instead of her own, and had taught Ray to do so as well. He thought that perhaps she'd hoped her conversion might in some way keep the curse fro her child. (How often had he heard her say in later years that the Galilean had been a good and gentle teacher, but the men he taught had been harsh and had never understood his words? In her own way, she had cut to the core of the new religion and extracted its value - the words of love and acceptance so like the words of the Mother.) But, of course, the thing she most feared had come to pass. Ray inherited the curse, and his mother turned away from all gods. She was a help to him, but she grew dry and old in the next years, as her soul grew arid.

It was the beginning of his journey, though, and so wrapped up was he in his own pain, he did not concern himself with his mother's. She was his guide, teaching him that always he had a choice in the path he would walk, despite the fact of Beelzy. The path he chose in the end had brought him to this place and moment in time. He couldn't regret any of the journey.

"Do you want to come back to my place?" Ray asked, aware that he had been silent, wrapped in his memories, for many miles.

"Or mine," Bodie replied in a slow drawl. He sounded sleepy. "Doesn't matter, does it, so long as we go together?"

So he still loves me, Ray thought with unexpected relief. "Right, then, my place. I'm more likely to have food in." At that, Bodie smiled, and Ray felt a terrible tenderness for him. He wished, for a moment, that he was a more conventional lover, but long ago he'd realized the folly of wishing for the things he could never have, and he put the thought out of his mind.

At Ray's flat, they fixed a light supper of cheese and fruit, opened a bottle of what Bodie had come to call 'Chateau DM,' and sat together in companionable silence in front of the fireplace.

"Nice this," Bodie observed as he inched closer to the grate to toast the bottoms of his feet. "How is it you were lucky enough to have this flat?"

"My winning personality. Bodie, is something troubling you?"

"Yes and no," Bodie admitted. "This is all so..." He seemed to reach for the right word. "So unbelievable. When we were at the innit was the most natural thing in the world, but the farther we travel, the more it feels like a dream. It's my problem," he added a moment later with a gesture that implied what he was feeling was unimportant. Ray was not so sure.

"It's our problem," he corrected. "If we want to make our relationship work...if it's not just that we fancy each other, that is, we have to deal with what I am."

"It's unique, I'll give you that," Bodie shot back. His smile was feeble.

"You said you were able to control it for a long time - why now? I mean..."

"I dunno," Ray admitted, picking a handful of grapes off the stem and tossing one into his mouth. He chewed thoughtfully for a few moments. "I think it might have to do with emotional upheavals. Beelzy appeared for the first time when I entered puberty...and I don't have to tell you what that does to the emotions."

Bodie smiled.

"Then when I joined the force, I wondered if he'd start to manifest again, but it wasn't until..." He bit his lip. "The first man I killed was trying to kill me. I killed him with my hands; broke his neck," he said, looking down at those hands. "It was eight years ago and I still remember the look on his face." He was lost for a moment in the memory, then pulled free with a shudder. "Maybe it's like your first sexual experience," he said with bitter humour, "no matter how awful it was, you never forget it. But it was after that that Beelzy reappeared. It had been five years since the last time and I honestly thought I was rid of him, but two days after I killed the bloke I started feeling that old feeling again and knew I'd have to get away from London. Of course I was on suspension pending an investigation, so I went to stay with my mother, praying I wouldn't change on the way.

That was Samhain...oh, Bodie, the call of blood is so strong then..." He curled up into a tight, foetal ball and rocked gently, remembering the hunt.

Bodie slipped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him close.

"Could I have that in English?" he teased. "I'm not yet one of the illuminati."

"Halloween to the uninitiated." All the same, he relaxed in his lover's strength and gave silent thanks to Lord and Lady for the gift of Bodie.

"Then it was over. I lived in fear for a couple of years before I began to feel safe again.

"When I had a chance to join this mob," he explained as he fed a few grapes to Bodie, "I almost said no because I knew Cowley needed a hard man who could kill if he had to, but I accepted anyway. I suppose I'm more of a hunter than I pretend. Bodie, I hate it with my mind, but something in my soul hungers for the hunt. And I have killed, too often in the last years, and every time I was terrified it would trigger the curse. But until the time you met Beelzy, there was nothing. That was a year ago, do you remember?" Bodie nodded, but remained silent. "Bodie, I'd started to love you then I knew it had gone past the simple lust stage and I didn't think you'd be too happy to hear I not only wanted to get you into my bed, but that I wanted you to marry me, that I wanted to be permanent." He broke off with a sigh that disguised a staggering array of emotions. "I didn't even foresee any way of working you out of my system, Bodie, because I couldn't tell you how I felt. It was that more than anything that brought Beelzy back to haunt me. I suppose I fell for Ann because I thought she might be the one to help me forget you."

He found he was breathing hard, that his eyes burned and his muscles were tense and quivering. Bodie frowned in the way he did when he was thinking very hard about something.

"We both know how that turned out," Ray said, feeling uncomfortable. "I never really loved her, and I expect she knew it. Poor Ann...if I'd loved her she'd have forgiven anything." He looked up into dark blue eyes. "The way you do. I know you'll always forgive me, Bodie."

"So long as you never tell me you took me to bed in order to get rid of the cat, I can handle anything else," he said after a moment of thought.

"You couldn't think that," Ray protested. "Bodie, you know me, you know I would never...Bodie?"

"Christ, Ray, I love you so much I don't think it would matter if you changed into Cowley at full moons and worshipped bedroom slippers! I want something permanent as well, and I swear to you I'll kill to keep it. If you don't want as much, tell me before this goes any further."

"No protests," Ray whispered, awed at the love he read in Bodie's eyes. All for him? "Dear Lord, d'you suppose we can make this work?"

"We've done tougher things...getting a rise out of the Cow for one," Bodie offered, reverting, as he always did at times of oppressive emotional highs or lows, to the wry humour that covered so much caring. The gruff man with the centre of cotton wool. Ray threw his arms around Bodie in an impulsive gesture of affection and trust. "First things first. Tomorrow we tell the Cow."

"What? About us or about..."

"Us to begin with. About the other, well, we'll just have to play it by ear until we can suss him out about the supernatural. Excuse me sir, but do you believe in ghosts and such?" he said with a grin of impish glee. Bodie lunged at him, knocking him to the floor, and began to press light kisses all over his face. "Am I marrying a lunatic?" Ray gasped under the onslaught.

"Just sex-mad, is all," Bodie whispered. "'Ave to 'ave it twice a day at least just to function."

Ray could only giggle helplessly while Bodie's hands roved over his body.

It had been so long since he'd been able to forget his troubles, since he'd shared his secret with another human being - one he loved as dearly as he loved himself.

Later, worn out with laughter and yet not quite ready to go together into the bedroom to make love, and sleep, and to end this day, they lay together in silence. Ray listened to the sound of Bodie's heart beating slow and steady. What a miracle is life, he thought as he listened to the comforting rhythm. And again he thanked the Laughing God and Lady of the Beltaine fires for their gift.

"What should we say exactly?" Bodie asked as they made their way down the corridor to Cowley's office.

"Well, I suppose...um..."

"See the problem?"

"Oh," said Ray, feeling less than confident now the moment was at hand.

"You don't have anything in mind?"

"Total blank," Bodie confessed.

"Well, we have to say something. We asked for this interview, remember?"

"Maybe we could tell him about you first, and then the rest wouldn't seem so...startling?"

"No," Ray said very firmly.

"No?"

"No."

Bodie knocked and at the terse "come" pushed the door open and stepped aside to let Ray enter first.

"Ah, Doyle, Bodie...what can I do for you?"

"Um, well, we..."

Bodie stepped in while Doyle was floundering. "There's something you should know, sir," he said, his tone flat, "about our holiday...about Doyle and myself."

"Ah, I was wondering when this would come up," Cowley said. "Sit down, lads."

"Wondering, sir?"

"Aye. I must confess I've suspected Doyle for a long time now, but you, Bodie, are a surprise to me."

Doyle sputtered with indignation. "Why me and not Bodie, for chrissake?" he demanded, wondering if it was his walk.

"You must admit you've been somewhat more obvious, Doyle."

"I what?"

"And your appearance is, to say the least, exotic enough to cause speculation..."

"Now just a second!" Ray blurted. "What do you mean, obvious? And what's wrong with my appearance?" Bodie's hand closed around his arm and tightened, warning Ray to say nothing more.

"Sir, what are you talking about?" Bodie asked.

Cowley studied both of them for a very long moment, and Ray held his breath, drawing strength from the hand that gripped his arm.

"Good lord," Cowley said at last. "You're lovers, aren't you? That's what you've come to tell me." His face flushed with embarrassment, and Ray felt the heat rise in his own skin.

"What did you think we'd come to tell you?" Bodie asked, his voice low.

"It's not important."

"It is, you know."

"Is there something more?" Cowley asked and Ray felt something whither inside. "Was I right, then?"

Ray pulled out of Bodie's grasp and ran from the office, unable to fact this moment. He hadn't trusted Bodie with his secret only to have Bodie betray it to Cowley.

For a quarter of an hour he hid from the rest of the staff in the tiny cubicle that served as a sometime office for himself and Bodie. Here they wrote their reports, or catnapped, or, as Doyle was doing now, sought refuge. But he couldn't stay. Sooner or later he'd have to face Cowley again and accept the old man's judgement. Wasn't Bodie's fault, either, he realized as he pulled himself together and prepared to re-enter the lion's den. It was for the best.

He knocked at the door.

"Come in, Doyle." Cowley's voice.

Bodie was still seated.

"He's told you," Ray said, more a statement than a question.

"Aye, he has. Sit down and have a drink." When Ray was reasonably comfortable, Cowley continued. "If it makes you feel any better, I will tell you I'd already guessed something of the sort. It seems, however, that your circumstances are a little unusual. The others who work for this agency have control of their talents, you do not. This makes you a liability to me."

"Sir, I explained..." Bodie began, but a hard look from the Controller silenced him.

"Bodie has explained that it seems to take you at specific times of year, that is, the solar festivals?" Doyle nodded. "I see. Has it ever occurred at any other time?"

"No sir, not that I recall."

Cowley sat back and steepled his fingers. "I'm going to give you an order now, Doyle; an open-ended one, of necessity. You will find a teacher and learn how to control your talent."

Ray was about to protest that he hadn't the vaguest idea where to start, but Cowley held up a hand to silence him.

"It will take time, I know, but it must be done for your own sake as well as for this organization. I can make use of such a talent, Doyle, but not an untrained one. How is it you've remained untrained? Did your family not help?"

"There was only my mother," Ray told him, "and she turned from the old ways when I was very young. She helped in the ways she could, but we had no contact with a circle or with other..." The words seemed to stick in his throat.

"I see. Well, I don't envy you. You must find your own teacher - it's not something I can give you. It would seem that you have some contact with the community now, is that so?"

Doyle nodded.

"You'll have to be very careful. Give me the names of the people you know and I'll have someone check. I can also give you a few references if you think you'll need them."

"Does CI5 have a witch-referral service now?" Bodie asked, and his flippancy was greeted with withering looks from both men.

"You said there were others in this agency?" Ray asked.

"I did."

"I don't suppose..."

"No, lad, it's not for me to tell you that. Most of them prefer, for obvious reasons, to remain anonymous. Perhaps one day."

"When I have my act together?" Ray asked. "All right. This is the place I usually go when I feel the change starting." He wrote down the name and address of The Dancing Maiden. "The people who own it know about m. They' re good people."

"Do you have warning of the change?"

"Yessir, usually several days."

"Then I expect to be kept informed. That's all."

"Sir, about the other?" Bodie began.

Cowley frowned. "Och, it makes little difference to me as long as it doesn' t impair your efficiency. Did you think you were the only ones in that as well? Mind you, I'd not like to hear it gossiped about, but so long as you' re discreet, I have no objection. I'm not even particularly surprised," he added. "Now get out and let me do some work this morning."

And so they were dismissed.

It had been easier than they had expected. Nothing more was said about either secret they had confided that morning, but a week later they were told that when it came time to move house again, for the sake of economy they would be sharing a flat. Ray was surprised, but Bodie just grinned.

"The old darlin' wants me to look after you," he explained. "Cats need extra care." Though the move was still some months away, they spent a lot of time making plans. Bodie became almost a permanent fixture at Ray's flat, sharing the double bed most nights.

Then one morning Bodie shook him awake. "Ray, I have to talk to you," he said, and the tone of his voice and the look on his face made Ray afraid.

"Why? What's wrong?" He couldn't see the clock, but from the slant of light through the bedroom window he assumed it was no later than five.

"I've been having this dream...I've been having it every night!" Bodie was obviously agitated.

"Okay, okay, just calm down a bit and tell me." He propped himself up against the headboard and pulled his lover against him, offering the one thing he knew he could give.

"I was dreaming about the forest," Bodie told him. "I never told you, but the night we were down at The Dancing Maiden I went into the forest to look for you. While I was walking there the sun began to set and I decided I'd better go back the way I'd come or I'd be lost for sure. I heard something, Ray, and I thought it was animal, but when I turned round, a man came out of the trees. He was tall and had flowers in his hair..." Bodie frowned and bit his lip. "He had horns, Ray, little horns poking up from his curls."

He looked up at Doyle's face as if he didn't think Ray would believe this madness. Doyle just nodded. He was too startled to speak. "He spoke to me and touched me and then he was gone and I couldn't move for a while, until the girl came and told me where you were."

"What girl?"

"Pretty little thing. She looked all of sixteen and she had flowers in her hair as well. They were both naked as jaybirds and didn't seem to care a bit. Anyway, for the last few days I've been having the same dream over and over - I go out into the forest to look for you and I meet her there and she says, "Did wait for thee," and then I make love to her and she gives birth to a baby that turns into me and then I kill myself...I mean, the baby who becomes me kills the me that made love to the girl. Ray, it's probably all some weird fixation about hating my father or something, except I never knew my father, and why did I choose that girl to dream about?"

Ray was quiet for a few moments, hardly knowing what to say. He knew what the dream meant, of course, but not why Bodie had had it. It worried him as it obviously did Bodie, but in a more immediate way.

"I can explain the symbolism to you," he said into the dark hair pressed against his cheek, "but I'm damned if I know why you're having the dream.

What you've seen is an extreme simplification of the wheel of the year. The girl you make love to is the Goddess; that must be who you saw in the forest that night. And the man you saw was the Old One - the Horned God, her consort. But in your dream you were the Horned One who is the brother and lover and son of the Goddess."

"All in one? That's convenient," Bodie joked, though it was a thin, nervous jest. "Ray, you're shaking. What does it mean? Tell me?"

"I'm afraid, too. I'm afraid She wants you, Bodie. How can I fight her?"

Bodie pulled away from him and looked him in the eye. "Wants me? I thought you always said She gave us to each other?"

"I thought so."

"So that's settled, then. No goddesses for me, okay lover?" His gruff good humour made Ray smile a little and he became the comforted in his turn.

"'Sides, I don't know as I believe in Her anyway," Bodie added. "For all I know those two in the forest might have been on their way to some fancy dress party...or undress, considering the state they were in. It was dark, after all."

He didn't say it to Bodie, but though Ray and never - quite - believed in Her either, what Bodie had just told him made him revise his opinion somewhat. If She existed, She wanted his lover, perhaps for a night - and perhaps for the rest of Bodie's life.

Ray found that there was too much to think about in the next weeks; he had no time to worry about Beelzy. Work piled u - the villains were always busy in late spring, as though they, like the trees and flowers, were restless and ready to burst forth after a long winter. He and Bodie put off their move, hoping to have more than a day or two here and there in which to do the work. And though he was anxious to live with Bodie, Ray decided it was just as well to have this time as lovers before they became entangled in too much domesticity. It gave them both time to think.

Not that he thought about much aside from how happy he was. They might not be love's young dream, he decided, but they were still honeymooning. For men like themselves, it was amazing. Two tough guys in love. There was no time at all for Beelzy.

But then the old feeling came on him again, and Ray knew it was Midsummer...Litha. He told Cowley, who took the news calmly.

"You'll be going south, then?" he asked.

"To The Dancing Maiden, yes. Will you let Bodie come along? I think he needs..." He broke off, unwilling to admit to any problem in the relationship.

"I quite understand. This can't be easy for him. Tell me quite honestly if you think Bodie has any magic."

"Everyone has magic, sir," Ray said, feeling slightly uncomfortable - as though they were discussing the possibility of Bodie having some unpleasant sexual habit like jerking off in crowded lifts.

"Aye, but precious few of us ever find ours. A few have theirs thrust on them, like you, Doyle. Do you regret it?"

"Not any more," he admitted without hesitation. "Or only occasionally."

"I'm glad to hear that. Now do me a favour, will you? Keep an eye on that partner of yours and tell me if you think he'll ever be able to find his magic. Whatever it is, I'm betting it's strong."

"You're hoping," Doyle said in a moment of insight. "It will make him more useful."

Cowley flashed a rueful smile. "You know me too well, lad. Almost as well as I know you."

"Never that well, sir," Doyle told him, returning the grin.

Once again they found themselves motoring down to the New Forest to stay at the inn and to wait for Beelzy's reappearance. Jane was frankly glad to see them and kissed them both warmly before showing them to their room. "Dinner 'll be ready soon, so don't get involved in anything that can't be stopped,"

she warned. Bodie blushed charmingly and Ray suppressed a grin of pure delight. Jane left and he threw his arms around his lover and hugged him very tight.

"You're beautiful when you blush," he teased.

"She cuts right through it, doesn't she?" Bodie muttered into Ray's neck, the heat from his skin betraying his continuing embarrassment.

"Everyone knows women are bawdier than men. Make a sailor blush they would, with what they talk about when they're with other women."

"Straight up?" Sometimes it amazed Ray how little Bodie knew about the earthier side of women for all his experience. He steered Bodie backwards toward the end of the bed. "What makes you the ex...OOF! The wind rushed out of Bodie as they fell back onto the wide, welcoming bed and Doyle landed on top of him.

"When I was in art school I did some modelling to help pay expenses - for a couple of semesters I was the only male model there and we all changed in the same room...worse'n a locker room, mate, let me tell you. Got an education, though. I learned which students were the best lays and who had the biggest..."

"Didn't know you were interested in that sort of thing," Bodie snapped, looking sulky, which made his mouth all the more tempting. Ray wondered how someone who looked the way he did had landed such a beauty. Still, he was not without charms of his own. What was it Cowley had said? Exotic?

"Ray?"

"Mmmmm?"

"You're a million miles away."

"Was just thinking how beautiful you are," he said, disarming Bodie once again. He nibbled the full lower lip gently. "And no, I'm not particularly interested in comparing cock sizes, but it was fun listening anyway...wouldn 't you?"

"Suppose so," Bodie admitted. His tone was grudging.

"Suppose so," mimicked Ray. "What a liar you are. Every time Monica dates another squad member you buy her a coffee and try to get her to rate the poor sod on a scale of one to ten!"

Bodie levered Doyle off himself and unbuttoned Ray's shirt. "That's like business, sunshine," he explained, "just checking out the competition."

"Not anymore you don't," Doyle warned as Bodie combed his fingers through Ray's chest fur. "I bite remember?"

"Don't I know it?" He rolled on top of Ray just as John knocked at their door and announced dinner was being served. He sighed and rolled off and stood up to straighten his clothes.

"Bodie, there's something I ought to tell you," Ray said as he rebuttoned his shirt. The look on Bodie's face made him chuckle. "Not like the last confession, lover. It's just that I told my mum where we'd be and she might come for the festival as well. She wants to meet you." If he'd expected happiness or even relief from Bodie, he was disappointed. Instead, he read unrelieved anxiety on his partner's face. "Bodie, what's wrong? Don't you want to meet her?"

"It's not that." Bodie ran a comb through his hair and Ray itched to muss it again. "It's just - I'd planned a nice little romantic weekend - just you and me and Beelzy. This is a little like a cold shower."

"She knows about us. She doesn't mind."

"She what?"

"Well, she was happy to hear I'd fallen in love."

"With a man? Mine wouldn't be." He moved to the door and Ray caught his arm.

"Later," he promised, "we're going to discuss this." Bodie's nod could have meant anything from agreement to 'let's not argue', but Ray had to accept it.

They went downstairs and Ray saw his mother sitting alone at a table near the window. "That's her," he said, nudging Bodie. The look of surprise, even shock on Bodie's face mirrored that on his mother's face as he introduced them to each other. In Bodie's case he assumed the surprise had to do with the fact that his mother was still young and surprisingly attractive, though she couldn't really be called beautiful. She was, like her son, exotic, with dark, slanting eyes and dark brown curls. She had a feline air.

Ray could only guess the cause of his mother's surprise. Bodie wasn't your typical nancy-boy. Joan Doyle had had very little experience with same sex relationships - in fact, for all that her upbringing had been as exotic as her appearance, she was curiously innocent.

At first the conversation was formal, even awkward, but Bodie and Joan seemed to warm to each other and Ray relaxed and watched them, enjoying the subtleties of their conversation. Each of them was adept at saying nothing while giving the appearance of openness.

"Ray's not told me much about you...Bodie." Clearly she was uncomfortable with the name as well.

"He's close, isn't he? He's not told me much about you either."

"You work together."

Bodie nodded and turned to Ray. "I'll bet that's all he's told you?"

"Not quite," she shot back, and Bodie flushed a little.

"I grew up having to keep quiet about my life," Ray said as he sipped his wine. His mother looked very unhappy. "I told her that you know everything important there is to know about me, Bodie. It's not easy for Mum to accept..."

"We're not used to outsiders knowing," she said quickly.

"I told you, he's not an outsider."

"Nor was your father - I thought." All the old bitterness was seeping out now, and it looked to Ray that Bodie was going to be the one to suffer. He was a little surprised that his mother would react this way.

So, apparently, was Bodie. He folded his napkin carefully and excused himself on the pretext that Ray would probably like some private time with his mother. "Mrs Doyle, lovely to meet you," he said as he stood. He touched Ray's shoulder. "I'll see you upstairs later."

"What's wrong?" Ray asked, and not pleasantly. He hated seeing Bodie treated as though he was some sort of intruder. "Why couldn't you be pleasant to him?"

"I don't like it, Ray. It's not you."

"Oh, for chrissake!

"Hush!"

He lowered his voice but pressed on. "I'm asking you a civil question and I expect a civil answer; and please don't give me some nonsense about not caring for the arrangement. You know very well if I'd brought some woman here you'd be just as upset - maybe more, considering your own life...which, by the way, doesn't stand up to close scrutiny either."

"How can you talk to me like that?" she demanded. "You know I only want what's best for you."

"Then accept that I've found it," he begged. For better or worse, her opinion was important to him.

"It's not...not the sex that bothers me, Ray, but he's like your father."

"No he's not!"

"He's not one of us."

"How do you know that?" In his agitation he overturned his wineglass and swore colourfully. "How can you judge him? Does your mistake make you the expert in these things?" He mopped at the purplish stain on the flowered cloth, feeling hopeless and helpless and terribly disappointed. "He knows, he accepts..Mum, he loves me for what I am - Beelzy and all, he loves me."

"The curse is dying out, Ray," she told him, turning from the subject. He allowed himself to be turned, unwilling to show too much more of his emotions.

"How do you know?"

"I've been investigating it. The family of the man who delivered the curse is dying out, only one old woman is left and she's nearly ninety. When she goes, so does the curse."

"So I just have to wait out the next few years," he said with more sarcasm than he intended. "How jolly."

The girl who waited tables came and took their plates, covered the stain with a clean napkin, and brought them coffee. "Is your friend not coming back, then?" She asked, smiling shyly. What female could resist Bodie?

His mother, apparently.

"Ray, you can think about having a wife and family."

He stared hard at her. "Is that it? You're sure I've picked Bodie because it's safe - no babies to worry about, no terrified adolescents to explain to?"

"Ray, don't..."

"It wouldn't matter," he said. "Understand that. It wouldn't matter. When I was eighteen I had meself fixed." She stared at him, obviously shocked and terribly upset. "I never told you 'cause I didn't want to make you feel guilty about it, but I couldn't live with the idea I might pass this on to a child. So you see, unless there's a family branch we don't know about, the curse will die with me no matter what."

"Oh, Ray, I'm so sorry," she whispered. He caught her hand and squeezed it.

"It was my choice. Just the way this relationship with Bodie was my choice - not a desperate act, Mum. Please try to believe that."

She nodded and pulled her hand free. "I suppose I owe him an apology," she said, refusing to meet his eyes.

"Only if you mean it," he told her and her head shot up. She was angry.

"Don't offer him anything you can't deliver - he's been hurt too much in this life; he won't be hurt through me if I can help it."

They parted, rather formally, after coffee, and Ray carried a slice of fruit tart up to Bodie who was stretched out on the bed reading a book about magic. "Fascinatin' stuff, this," he said, too heartily. He had that guarded look about him that always froze Ray.

"Brought you a sweetie," he told Bodie as lay down beside him, "and a fruit tart."

"Which is which?"

"Bodie, I..."

"Don't apologize for her," he snapped, picking at the pastry.

"I wasn't about to. But I did want to say I was sorry for telling her it would be okay to come down to meet us here. I should have left things as they were. It's just...I thought she'd be happy. I was so sure she accepted...when I talked to her about it all..."

Bodie slipped an arm around him. "S'okay, lover. Your mum may not love me, but you do, don't you? So that's the main thing."

"Straight up?"

"Honest." He smiled the sweet smile that was reserved for very private moments. "Anyway, I'm used to having mums look at me like I was Jack the bloody Ripper."

Ray chuckled. "Knowing you, sunshine, I'd say they look at you more as a prospective 'usband than son-in-law."

"It's my incredible personal charm," he said, or tried to before Ray covered his mouth with his own.

It was early the next morning when Ray felt the change begin. He shook Bodie awake and told him not to worry; that he'd be back by evening...

and then

hungry...

hunt...

out...

and he was running again through the forest, among the scavenging creatures of the early hours, brothers all, of a common language, and enemies. A vixen barked as he ran by. There was only now to him, and self and the driving hunger that went deeper than his belly, all the way into his blood.

blood...hungry he sniffed the air delicately, his senses alive in the early light. There was only the now. He ran on.

But before he killed, another scent came to him, stronger even than the scent of his prey female She was sitting on a log, licking the blood from her black fur, a dainty creature with golden eyes. He approached. She watched. The tiny forest creatures watched the courtship dance of near violence and playful tenderness.

female She moaned low in her throat and he leapt on her, catching her ruff in his mouth and mounting her, done quickly and parted. She cleaned his ears and trotted away, and the blood hunger took him again.

He killed. blood And he fed.

And with the hunger appeased, something hidden deep within him began to reassert itself, that which remembered something other than self mate and an alien name cat language couldn't contain, but the memory of which haunted him as the hunger had done.

Mate

He turned towards the home place, towards the setting sun.

Just before he reached the bed he became Ray again, and he collapsed against the fresh white sheets and slept, drained of all his energy and feeling low.

When he woke, Bodie was there with him, arms around him, sleeping the sleep of the innocent. Ray kissed him softly.

"Lost a whole day, 'aven't I?" he asked as he saw the early morning sun creep across the window ledge, making the cyclamen in the window translucent. It struck the hanging prisms and threw rainbows on the whitewashed walls. Bodie nuzzled him, but said nothing. "I wanted to share the festival with you," Ray said sadly.

"I watched."

"You didn't go?" Bodie shook his head. "Why not?"

"Like your mother said, I'm an outsider. It's all right when I'm with you..."

"Bodie, that's not so. They know you here now. Anyway, there were all new to it once, even my mother, and she denied it for twenty years."

"Didn't want to go without you," he said, and turned to watch the rainbows dance.

"Ever?"

"What?"

"Ever? You won't ever go without me? You do it for me?"

"More or less, yeah." Ray was perturbed. He didn't want to deny the gift, but it was not for him to command Bodie's conscience.

"One thing is as good as another, eh, sunshine?"

"Not really. Not if you don't believe. Maybe when you understand how I believe, you'll come to appreciate..."

"To believe?" Bodie asked, and Ray thought he detected a hint of mockery, which made him angry.

"Don't patronize me!" He snapped, but he didn't release Bodie; he just went on stroking gently. "I've seen too much to discount magic, Bodie, but magic is a thing of definition and of circumstance, as truth is."

"Oh go on with you, gettin' metaphysical at this hour," Bodie drawled.

"Don't hide from me, either," Ray ordered, though very gently. A dozen emotions passed over his lover's mobile features before Bodie's eyes met his.

"I'm not sure I can believe in anything, Ray, except maybe you. I don't even believe in me most of the time. I'm trying very hard to understand you and what you believe in, but I keep feeling left behind. Sometimes when you tell me about all this, about the old ways, I feel as though I remember what you're talking about - crazy, huh? Other times, it's just so much hocus-pocus. Silly, y'know?"

Ray smiled. "Sometimes magic is just inspired silliness, Bodie."

"That's all?"

"Mmm-hmmm."

"Moral majority would 'ave a field day with you lot."

Ray tried to suppress a shiver. He knew enough about the burning times to be afraid. "Tell me," he said, changing the subject, "what exactly did you tell the Cow about me that day?"

"You only just wondered now?"

"No, I've always wondered. I just now feel I have the strength to endure knowing." He stroked lower across Bodie's ass, making him shudder.

"Told him you were a vampire, didn't I? And that you'd bit me and I was your slave and if he wanted to keep me on the staff he'd have to let us live together."

For one terrible moment Ray believed him. His face must have shown it because Bodie began to laugh. "Oh, sunshine, how can I take you seriously when you'd believe that?"

Ray stroked down over Bodie's cock and wiped the smirk off his face. "Now I want the truth or you'll have nothing special before breakfast."

"Told him just what you told me," Bodie said. "Told him about the curse."

"Not just like that." He ran a fingertip the length of the blindly seeking flesh and it gave a little leap, like a creature with a will of it's own; like Beelzy, he thought with a wry grin.

"No, I made him give me a bit of information for every bit I gave him.

Trade. I 'aven't worked in Intelligence all these years for nothing. You see, if he'd guessed anything that meant there had to be others he knew about. I asked him straight out and he said yes, there were others on the squad, but most of them were solo agents and we wouldn't know them anyway.

For that bit of information, I gave him the bare facts of your affliction.

I told him the specifics when he admitted he had a talent of his own.

Wouldn't tell me what it was, though, and I'd run out of good bits to trade."

"You're a sly bugger, Bodie." He kissed the dark man, opening his mouth to an eager tongue. Then he pulled away, the memory of Beelzy's mating still fresh and pungent in him. "I want to own you, beautiful man," he rasped as they pressed together, wriggling, teasing, kissing softly, almost playfully.

"Turn over and let me do you."

And without protest, Bodie flipped onto his belly and bent his knees, tilting his backside upwards. Ray knelt behind him and drew his fingernails down the delicate skin of Bodie's back, leaving red welts on the white cheeks and thighs. He took a moment to lubricate himself and without any preliminary caress he entered the offered body as Beelzy had done the day before with the little black cat. Bodie moaned, but to Ray's ears, used to the nuances of Bodie's lust, it was not a sound of pain. He pulled back and pressed in again, slowly this time, making each exquisite sensation last.

Bodie raised the upper part of his body and Ray wrapped his arms around the smooth chest and hauled him upwards, moving more freely in and out of the beloved body. He wrapped one hand around Bodie's erection and pumped him vigorously in the same rhythm. Then he kissed the padded muscle of Bodie's left shoulder and bit deep into it, stifling his own cry of release in sweat-slick, salty flesh. Bodie's cry echoed for both.

The animal, so deeply buried in Ray, spoke in an animal voice: mate

They went down together to breakfast, holding hands because Ray wanted to and despite the fact that Bodie was uncomfortable. Ray's mother was not in the dining room.

But there was a woman there who was a stranger, yet familiar in such an intimate was...She caught his gaze and smiled, absently at first, the way one does when sharing good will with a stranger, and then with growing recognition, until she threw back her head and laughed aloud. The man with her stared at her and grinned.

She rose and walked towards Ray, enfolding him in her arms, and for a moment he was afraid. But then he relaxed in her strength, and whispered 'mama' into her tight curls, and she laughed again more gently.

"Among other things," she said. "Come, share our meal." She held out her hand to Bodie who, to Ray's surprise, did not refuse, and she drew them back to the table.

"My name is Colette," she told them, "and this is Kevin, my lover, a teller of tales, a singer of songs."

"I'm Ray and this is Bodie...my lover." He studied Colette carefully with the eyes of a CI5 agent. She was in her forties, he guessed, and tall and slender, and her skin was the colour of milk chocolate. She was not beautiful and yet she was. Already he loved her. Kevin was more exotic - lighter-skinned and blue=eyed, he was completely bald and wore a long silver earring in the shape of the crescent moon in one ear. He could have been anything from thirty to sixty years old. Ray noticed he had artist's hands, long and slender, and that the fingers were calloused.

"Ray and I met in the Forest, or rather Niniane and..." She looked to Ray.

"Beelzy," he said, feeling foolish. Colette and Kevin both laughed.

"Ambivalent feelings about him, eh?" she asked.

"So would you have if you couldn't control Niniane," Bodie said, and Ray turned to him surprise. What did Bodie know about her and how?

"You need a teacher," Colette said, and it was not a question.

They talked then, as though they had always known each other. Even Bodie seemed at ease with Colette, and Ray felt a moment of sadness, wishing that his own mother had been so easy with his lover.

Colette said she was willing to take him on as a student, but warned him that the journey was a hard one. She told him he would have to spend some time wither her, either here or in her home in San Francisco.

When Ray admitted that time and money were at a premium, she just smiled and said, "That can be taken care of. Ray, you've called me to you," she hesitated for a moment, "or someone did. Anyway, I'm meant to be your teacher. When you're ready, you'll make the commitment without thought."

She gave him her name, address and phone number. "When you call, I'll come to you and we can begin, but be sure you know the path you want to walk. If you accept responsibility for Beelzy, your life will be more difficult."

Ray found it hard to believe that life could be more difficult than it was now, but he nodded and promised to consider carefully.

Later, when they went for a walk, Ray asked Bodie, "Do you know her? I mean, did you see her here yesterday?"

"No."

"How did you know...l mean, you seemed to know about her..." He found it hard to put his question into words. "You know something," he said at last.

"You needed a teacher," Bodie said with an eloquent shrug. "It's what I was wishing for."

--Litha 1981

---

Nine Lives

I hadn't been back to work but a couple of weeks when I had a bad feeling that something was wrong with one of my children. It was weird too, because I usually know which baby is in trouble - surrogate motherhood takes me like that. Anyway, this one was in a lot of trouble because he or she (though I have fewer girls than boys who need me) was pulling real hard. It only lasted a day and then it was gone again, like someone had just lifted all that hurting and fear onto himself leaving me to get on with my life.

Couple of days later, Kevin called me and said, "You know, I've been thinking about those two at the inn," and it was then I realized that it was one of them who had been drawing on me. I got rid of Kevin and concentrated hard on Ray and Bodie, reaching out to them in hope of finding them whole and well, but all I could feel was a void where they should have been.

I was depressed by the time I gave up my search Kev stopped by with a pizza and some beer and was patient while I grumbled about him never leaving me alone. Then he sat me down and made me eat - was delicious, too, a Kevin special loaded with everything that had been hanging around his fridge.

"You're too wrapped up in this, my baby," he told me. "What can you do?"

"Someone drew Ray 'n' me together," I reminded him. "I'm involved even if I can't do anything more than sit and worry."

"Okay, okay." He dropped the subject and switched on the radio to fill up the silence while we ate.

Later I took him into my bed, but couldn't get interested in more than cuddling which was okay with Kev. He has the gift of being everything I need - brother, lover, father and devil's advocate all rolled into one exotic package. He got u a couple of hours later and dressed.

"Tal is working tomorrow night. You coming? He'll be disappointed if Mama Colette isn't in the audience." Tal is one of my lame ducks and the young man who'd shared Kevin's house and, occasionally, his bed for almost six years now. Though he was almost twenty-five, he looked like a child; and in all the years we'd known him, he'd never uttered a word Kev taught him to tell stories with his face and body and christened him Taliessin since we never knew his name. I promised to be there and fell asleep before he left the house. This mother business takes a lot out of me.

About two weeks later, I got a call from my supervisor asking me to stop by her office before I went home.

"I've received a rather unusual request and I wanted to discuss it with you." She passed an official-looking letter across the cluttered desk.

"It's from a Major Cowley in London..."

I skimmed the letter. "...one of my men...gravely injured..." Was that what I'd felt? He didn't say which one, and for the life of me, I couldn't tell either. That was the oddest thing - I could have sworn that both of them had been hurt. Then a thought struck me with the force of a blow - was one of them dead? That would account for the void. Was it Ray? Had this Cowley person found my name in his personal effects?

"...never encountered anything like thi...Colette? Are you with me?"

"Doro, I'm sorry. The man he talks about is a friend." I knew it was Ray or Bodie, sure as I knew my own name. But which one?

"Oh, my dear, I'm so sorry. Is that why he made the request?"

"Request?"

"Finish the letter," she ordered gently. "Or would you rather I just filled you in quickly?" I nodded. "The Major has asked us to allow you to come to London to work with this man. He'll need extensive therapy, Cowley says.

Colette, what kind of business is this?"

"Beats me," I lied. "Must be important." Kev calls this my 'don-know-nuthin' act.

"Anyway, he's gone to considerable trouble to get you over there." She waved an airline ticket at me. "Don't they have physical therapists in London?"

The expression on her face made me laugh. "More than enough, I imagine. I guess he thinks I'll be good for Ray." There. My subconscious had provided the answer - it was Ray who was injured. I was flooded with a vast relief that my new chick was alive, but a sadness too at the thought that Bodie, that lovely, restless lostchild might be gone.

"You look pale, Colette. You okay?"

How could I explain to her? She was a friend, but she was also my supervisor. "Ray and his partner are special to me," was all I said.

"You want to go?"

"You'll let me?"

"Even if I wasn't inclined to, I don't have much choice." She handed me another letter and got up to pour coffee for both of us. "Cowley has clout," she said.

The letter was from the Secretary in charge of excess verbiage, I think, and I wondered if my taxes were paying for this expensive stationery. "Full co-operation" stood out. Hell, I don't like being ordered around even by the government, I could imagine how Doro felt. "I guess I'm causing you a lot of trouble, huh?"

She handed me a spoon and two packets of sugar. (Hospital coffee is like mud by the end of the day.) "Not as much as you might think. If you can finish out the week here, we have that new man from New Hampshire due in in ten days, so we'll only go short-staffed for a while. And the Major says he 'll be paying your salary while you're gone. Shall I inflate the figure?"

she asked with a wicked gleam in her eyes.

"Better not...well, only a little." Paying my salary...my airfare. Shit, that meant I had to fly. I couldn't use the gates.

I left a week later. Kev and Tal moved into my house to take care of things while I was away. I hated to leave since I had a new lame duck who was terribly troubled. He'd been with me for about six months...Wait; maybe I ought to explain myself first.

I was sixteen when I was told I'd never be a mother. At first it was terribly hard to bear since I'd wanted nothing else all my life. But bear it I did because there was no choice at that time. I kept on taking in stray animals as I'd always done, but soon after, when I entered college, I began to take in stray people, people who were spiritually wounded, and they all became my children. Later when I cam came to the Bay area to work, I bought an old Victorian house and fixed it up, and opened its doors to the ones who needed me. I'm forty-five next year and I've mothered more babies, human and otherwise, than any woman could ever imagine.

Tal had been one of my children for four years before he went to live with Kev. To this day, he still signs 'Mama Colette' whenever he sees me, his blue eyes all shiny with love. Tal is a sweet child, and very near to my heart, as he is to Kevin. But Jamie, my new duckling...he's a challenge. I met Jamie in the hospital eight months ago. He'd cut his wrists on the Golden Gate and had stood alone in the fog letting his bloody drain into the bay. He was seventeen years old and had been on the streets since he was twelve. There's nothing that hasn't been done to my Jamie.

I got to know him while he was recovering figured he could use a little mothering. He'd been cursed with the sort of looks that tempted even the untemptable - tall, silver-blond, sculpted face, luminous blue eyes that were shot with green or pale lilac in the right light - he had the face of a melancholy angel. It wasn't any wonder everyone wanted a bit of him, a word, a touch...just to say (as I heard one volunteer do) that they'd seen him and yes, he was the prettiest thing ever to grace these halls. It was crazy; even the straight men and gay women were drawn to all that melancholy beauty. One day, the chaplain, the head dietician and two nurses from Obstetrics, none of whom had any business being there, were hovering around him when I arrived. I remember that day because it was the first time I saw him smile. It was a wry expression and it said: "Do you believe these people?" but it was a smile all the same, and I shared it with him.

Thinking on it now, I realize that he had little enough reason to trust me either, except maybe he knew that I wasn't asking him for anything, but that I had something for him.

That day I told him, after I shooed the others out (let me tell you, there were some hard feelings about that day around the hospital) that if he needed a home, my door was open to him. His face shuttered and he mumbled, "Don't need anything from anyone." I didn't press the issue.

But three weeks later, two weeks after he'd been released and I thought I'd never see him again, I found him waiting for me outside the hospital after work. "Lost your address," was all he said. He's been with me ever since.

When I told him I had to leave for a while he didn't say much - none of these children speak much, I've noticed - but I could tell he was unhappy.

I was halfway across the Atlantic when I realized I'd be gone on his birthday - November first. He'd be eighteen. I'd have to do something about that.

I had a shock - a welcome one - at Heathrow. Bodie was there to meet me.

He looked terrible, ashen pale and ten years older, but he was alive. "I'm so glad to see you, Bodie," I said. He gave me a look that made me shiver.

"Ray's in a bad way," he said. "Girl snuck into his flat...he was careless," he added bitterly. There are no accidents, I thought, and wondered why it had happened. "Shot him three times at close range." His tone was flat.

Was it Bodie, I wondered, who had taken all of Ray's troubles onto himself?

Was he the one who had drawn it away from me? I wanted to reassure him with a touch, but he was so closed I couldn't. "But he'll live," I said, "or your Major Cowley wouldn't have sent for me. And why did he send for me?"

"Oh yeah, he'll live." And this time, I thought I heard some bitterness in his voice and wondered at it. "As for the why," he said, retrieving my bag and whisking me through Customs with a flash of his ID, "I asked him to.

Didn't know what else to do."

"I don't follow. Bodie, I'm not a healer, I'm a teacher."

"You're the only one I could think of."

"To do what?" I pushed as he led me to his car. He opened the door, tossed my bag in, waited there until I was seated and shut it behind me. Good manners are not dead.

"I don't know, Colette, okay? I was scared he'd die." He started the car and let it run for a moment. "Maybe I needed someone to hold my hand...I don't know."

"What did you tell your Major Cowley? Surely..."

"I told him the truth. He's one of you." How odd, I though, 'one of you' not 'one of us.' "I told him that you could work with Ray while he was in hospital. He's dead keen to have a tame shape shifter on the squad," he added with bitter humour. "And I told him he could use your real career as cover. Ray'll need physical therapy."

"I don't doubt it," I said. "Is he al right...inside, I mean?"

"I don't know. Maybe that's why I wanted you here." He paused for a moment. "I think he wanted to die."

"Why on earth..."

"I don't know!" he shouted. "God, don't you think I've asked myself that a thousand times?"

This time I did touch him, and the chaos inside of him was unbearable. How could he stand to feel that way, I wondered.

Ray was still flat on his back when I arrived at the hospital, and he still had tubes running through him. Wasn't much I could do with a man in this condition, though I did notice a smile on his face when he saw me. "Helluva way to get me here, Ray," I teased.

"Subtlety has never been my strong suit," he rasped. His colour was better than Bodie's.

"Do what you can," Bodie said to me, and he left the room.

Ray sighed. "He's so angry with me," he said. "Maybe he has a right. I almost left him."

"Why?" I asked, shrugging off my coat and sitting beside the bed.

"I'm not sure, really, except that the choice was to go on or go home. I'll never lose him, not really."

"Yes, but he doesn't know that, does he?" I asked sounding prim and school-marmish. There was a knock at the door and it swung open to admit a small, sandy-haired man with a look of power about him. George Cowley, I realized, and one of the servants of the Lady. Before the door swung shut behind him, I saw Bodie standing outside, staring at Ray with a look of the most intense and terrifying love I've ever seen.

"Ms Caroll, I'm George Cowley." His sharp blue eyes took in the silver pentacle at my throat.

"Colette, please."

"And you must call me George." He took my hand in his and I could feel the tingle of power at his fingertips. "Do you think we can do anything with the lad?"

"Oh, I expect so. I haven't seen his charts yet, so I don't know the extent of the damage, but I've worked with hard cases before."

"You hear that, laddie?"

"I'm for it," Doyle groaned.

"Too bloody right. Colette, I have to go back to work now, but I'd welcome the chance to speak to you again once you've had opportunity to acquaint yourself with the situation. Dinner?"

"I'd be delighted," I told him, and I felt myself flushing a little.

Luckily it hardly shows on me. Oh girl, do you think you're gonna get laid tonight? And by a Scots witch too? Yep.

"He was nice to you," Ray said after George left.

"You sound surprised."

"He mostly shouts at us."

That made me laugh out loud, and Bodie poked his head into the room.

"Trouble here?" he asked, with a wry smile that took a few years off him. I wondered how long it had been since he'd smiled. Which one of them was the harder case?

"Trouble there," I said, pointing at Ray. "That's what I'm gonna call him until he's well, anyway."

"Good idea," Bodie said, his face shuttering again. He was about to back away, when I went to the door to talk to him.

"Ray, I'll be back in a minute or two," I said, shoving Bodie back and shutting the door behind me. "You gonna be around or do you have to go back to work too?"

"I'm assigned to you for a week until you're settled, why?"

"Well, I need someone to have lunch with, for one thing, and for another, I want to talk to you." He looked wary, but said nothing. "You need help as much as Ray does," I told him, and to his credit, he didn't protest.

"Just sort him out first, will you?" he asked gently.

"Love doesn't have to do with the subjugation of self, Bodie." I patted his cheek and he leaned into the caress as though he'd been touch-starved for weeks. Of course he was, I realized. "Now, if you're assigned to me, you have to do as I say, right?"

"I'm for it," he said with a deep sigh.

"Then I want you to find an empty bed and sleep for a few hours while I talk to Ray. Will you do that?"

"Whatever you say, Mom." He kissed my cheek and walked on down the hall.

It might have been my imagination, but he seemed to step lighter than he'd done earlier.

"What'd he say to you?" Ray asked when I returned.

"Who, Cowley or Bodie?"

"Bodie!"

"None of your business. Now, tell me what happened to you."

"Haven't they told..."

"It's not details I want, Ray, its reasons."

"I told you, I don't really know why I let it happen," he said. At least, I thought, he understood that he'd made all the choices, even if the why was still murky. "I guess maybe I was just tired. Sounds pretty lame, doesn't it?"

"Depression is something we all suffer from time to time, Ray. Sometimes for no apparent reason." I paced the room, wishing for an easy answer.

"You two seemed happy at the inn."

"We were. We've never been anything but. No, it's not Bodie or our relationship that bothered me. Do you suppose this could have been a way of, of..." he was floundering for the words, he looked tired.

"Slow down, we have time."

"Maybe I need to stand back and look at what I am. That's what I did, you know. At first I wasn't sure I liked what I saw, either, but Bodie was there with me the whole time...in between. How'd he do that?"

My head hurt and I rubbed it absently before I answered. "He's always with you, isn't he? Just like you're always with him."

"Am I?"

"You are right now. Tell me what he's doing."

He frowned at me then shut his eyes. In a few moments a smile spread across his face. "He's asleep," he said softly.

"And that's what you're going to do as soon as we're through here. Anything else?"

"I guess I realized that if Bodie values me, then I must be...valuable." I nodded, but let him continue. "I've never really felt like this before, like a part of someone. I love my mother and I think she loves me, but it's not the same."

Think she loves me. Well, that says something, I thought. "No, it usually isn't. Well, I'm not going to push you any further today. You could do with some rest." I kissed his forehead and smoothed back the long curls.

They were shiny - a good sign. I waited with him until he fell asleep.

Then I whispered, "Go find him," and crept out of the room.

The nurses promised not to disturb him for a couple of hours, and they gave me his charts and a quiet place in which to study them. Like I told George, I'd handled harder cases, but I wasn't sure just how far I could bring him.

With injuries like this, I wondered if he'd ever be back at optimum fitness again. I'd do what I could for him, I decided, and let the rest take care of itself.

I woke Bodie about one-thirty, and was pleased to see that he looked much better than when I'd sent him to bed. His colour was good, and while the dark circles under his eyes were still ominous, he looked more like himself.

He was charmingly rumpled and he looked startled when he realized who I was.

"Dreaming about your better half?" I teased, and was surprised to see him flush and draw up one leg to hide what I imagined was hard evidence of what he'd been dreaming about. "I'm hungry. Get yourself together and meet me at the elevator in about fifteen minutes. I hope you know some good restaurants."

I peeked in at Ray and saw that he was smiling in his sleep.

Bodie and I spent the afternoon running around London. He bought me lunch, got me settled into a nice furnished apartment ('flat' he kept saying each time I called it an apartment. We don't really speak the same language.), and we talked. He told me a lot about himself, and I think it surprised him that he was so voluble. He struck me as the sort of man who rarely speaks about himself.

He had a lot in common with so many of my children - on his own at fourteen and until he'd learned to say no in ways that would be respected, he'd been used by anyone who'd been strong enough and unethical enough. It's a story I've heard so often that I was able to remain cool, which is what he needed.

A man like Bodie has no use for pity - he didn't feel it for himself and didn't expect or even care for it from others.

Seemed that Ray had become the focus of life from the day they met, and that scared me a little because that sort of obsession usually leads to tragedy.

Still, they seemed to be dealing with it. Or were they? I made a mental note to find out what Ray thought of Bodie's feelings for him.

"It's this business with Beelzy and the old religion and all that bothers me a little. I haven't believed in anything but Ray for a long long time.

Dunno if I can be any more than an interested spectator. It's hard on Ray, I know. His mum doesn't trust me either."

Oh ho! Now we're getting places, I thought. "What d'you mean?" He was helping me to rearrange the furniture and was looking a little annoyed at having to move the same lamp four times. I can't help it, I'm particular.

"She married some bloke who made her convert to RC after Ray was born. She doesn't trust outsiders."

"What's an outsider?" I asked him.

"Someone who doesn't belong. Look, why don't you just buy another lamp?"

"And you don't think you belong?" I persisted.

"Don't believe in all this stuff...no offence."

"None taken, but the point I'm trying to make is that you're no more an outsider than she or I or Ray..."

"Give over," he drawled. "I don't like being patronized."

"Damn you, you thick-headed Brit, what makes you think you're worth patronizing?" I yelled. He looked startled and put the lamp down in just the right spot. "That's perfect, don't move it!" Then I felt sorry for my flash of temper. "Bodie, I apologise, that wasn't nice. But just because I 'm an Ignorant Barbarian Colonial doesn't mean I haven't got some integrity."

"I didn't mean..."

"I know you didn't." I sat down on the couch and patted the seat beside me.

"Come here and listen to me for a minute." He sat down, but he was tense and withdrawn. "Bodie, there is no such thing as an outsider. The old ways are just another method of explaining the universal truth which is that you and I and Ray and his mother and George Cowley...we're all God, whatever that it."

"Always knew George was," he quipped.

"Ray needs you, he needs your strength." I took his hand and felt, as I had with Cowley, a tingle of power that startled me. Oh, he has magic, I told myself with pleasure, and a strong magic - still unknown and unchannelled it could move me the way Cowley's had done.

"I need him as well," he said, the bitterness back in his voice.

"And he tried to leave you, and you're very angry with him."

"Yes." His fingers clenched around mine rather painfully.

"Maybe he didn't really want to leave; maybe he just needed to step out of his skin and take a good look at what sort of life he was living."

"What's wrong with it?" Bodie asked defensively.

"Nothing, that's just the point. He had to realize that."

He was silent for such a long time that I wondered what he was thinking, but finally he said, in such a low voice I nearly missed it, "I miss him most in the mornings." There were tears running down his face. "I was so afraid I' d lose him."

He hadn't even cried, poor child. Probably he hadn't cried since he left home. So I held him while he did, and I wished my Jamie could find this release some day.

Bodie left before George came by - discreet devil. "'Ave some housework to do meself," he explained as he kissed goodbye.

Over dinner I gave George my assessment of Doyle's condition according to what I'd read. "Of course, until I can work with him, I won't have any clear idea of what can be done. It is a little early..."

"I understand that you're going to be his teacher, though. It's not too early to begin that."

Oh, but he was a smooth one. "You have an interest in his...abilities?" I asked as he poured some more wine.

"Oh yes. I have many talented individuals on my staff."

"Do you now? How interesting. But an untrained talent is more a liability to you, isn't it?"

"Precisely." He stared at me for a few moments. "So are undiscovered ones; they have a tendency to backfire."

"Get out of my head!" I snapped. "That's not fair."

"No, I'm sorry, it's not. But you do know that I'm right," he pursued.

"All I can do is talk to him about it."

"You wouldn't have any idea of what Bodie's gift is?"

"None at all, I'm afraid."

He sighed heavily and I suddenly saw the years that lay on him. I realized that much of his energy went to holding off the effects of time and illness of injury.

"You love him, don't you?" I asked. "That isn't mind-reading, by the way, it's instinct."

"Well, yes, he's very special to me. I could shake him most times." He sat back and folded his napkin. "He's an infuriating lad. Doyle is good for him. Steadier. Oh, before I forget, your supervisor quoted me a most interesting figure when I asked her what your monthly salary was."

Good old Doro.

The rest of the evening was lovely. We didn't talk about Bodie or Doyle again and I began to feel as if I was on vacation. George is a fascinating talker. And in case you're wondering, yes, the girl got what she wanted and she enjoyed it immensely.

When I walked into Ray's room the next day and found Bodie there, holding Ray's hand and the two of them just looking at each other, I figured the hard part was over. "Well, I'm not having you play Irving Underfoot, Bodie.

If you're going to stay, you're going to work."

The first thing I taught them was the nature of power. I taught them that it came from within themselves, that power was the focusing of their wills.

"Some folks can visualize just about anything, which is the easiest way to focus," I told them. "Others have what you'd call a touchstone; something that literally is the focus of their power. It could be a person or an object. It's possible for some of these people to use their power unconsciously when they're near their touchstone.

"When the two of you work with me we'll use visualization. I can't teach you how to use a touchstone - it has to happen on its own."

Always I included Bodie when I spoke about power because I wanted him to take it seriously for his own sake. If he was as strong as I thought he was, all that power could backfire on him one day.

Then came what Ray had begun to call 'hands-on' training. I taught them how to ground the power they called up and how to centre it. "Imagine yourself floating," I told them. "Feel the movement inward and downward. Use any image that can help you feel this. The object is to relax. I want you to learn how to relax your whole body and I want you to learn how to relax your minds."

This last was going to be both simple, because they had well-disciplined minds, and difficult because their job had taught them never to relax.

"Focus on a single image which suggest an emptying. Think of a door. Think of a room into which you put all your troubles, all your concerns, your anger and your pain. Now close the door and lock it. You've emptied your mind of its negative thoughts. Now reach for a positive image - something that pleases but doesn't distract you - a flower, a butterfly...let yourself be part of that image," I urged them.

"The next bit should be easy for you two. I want you to concentrate on your breathing and nothing else. Inhale deeply, exhale. If you know about Chakras, think of yourself as exhaling from the sacral Chakras. If not, put your hand on your abdomen about an inch below your navel and focus on the spot as you exhale. Inhale - slow - exhale. Good." They were damn good at following directions.

"Inhale - hold." I counted to five. "Exhale - hold." I counted breaths for several minutes. "Now hold each breath for as long as you're comfortable. Inhale..." I let them breathe on their own for several minutes.

"Ten." I began the deepening phase. "Nine...eight..." They were breathing deeply now, profoundly relaxed. "Seven...six...five...feel yourself descending...four...three...two...one. You are in a deepened trance state," I told them, "and you need protection. Choose an image with which to make a circle. White light is good, though you may choose any other colour. A sound, vibrations - anything which eases or comforts you. Use this image to build a circle around yourself it will protect you from all hurt."

Then I set them simple exercises in visualization designed to reinforce this process. I hoped to bring them to a point where the trance would become second nature. I wanted them to be able to reach a light trance state in a matter of moments. From that point it would become as natural as...breathing.

By this time, the week was over and Bodie had to go back on regular duty. I made a note to speak to George about that, because I was starting to see tangible signs of his power, though not yet his talent. Once I got him past the initial feeling-silly-about-all-this-nonsense phase, I found that the vibrations of power he gave off increased with each stage in our learning.

On the last day we were all together, I told them to ground and centre the power as I'd taught them, and I actually saw the aura of it around Bodie.

It was flowing out of him - even Ray felt it and opened his eyes in surprise, but said nothing. Then suddenly, it just stopped. And Bodie was looking at both of us with the oddest expression.

"Crikey, you'll 'ave me walkin' on a bed of nails next, or fire-eatin'. An' speakin' of which, I'm hungry. Anyone for ice-cream?"

He has a talent for evasion.

Ray progressed quickly, not only learning from me, but making intuitive leaps. His education was sadly lacking, and I found myself judging his mother - rather unfairly, I suppose. It seemed a shame to me that she shoul d have turned away from the one way that offered help to her son. Still, it was not my place to judge. She had to carry her own guilt. Ray was an apt pupil and he had an open mind, which I've always considered to be one of the greatest attributes of a successful student.

He healed quickly as well, and I found myself wondering if it was all through his own efforts. It seemed to me there was someone else always standing beside him. Bodie? I couldn't tell. This power was faceless and elusive, but it seemed far too channelled. Bodie may have been strong, but I doubted that he had the focus needed for such a specific task as healing.

Besides, since the last day I'd worked with him, I'd felt nothing from him, no sense of hidden power, no vibrations, nothing. He'd obviously closed down the sources unconsciously, feeling, perhaps that things were getting beyond his control. I could tell that he didn't like the idea of magic and the paranormal.

When I mentioned his training to George, I also mentioned his withdrawal, since I felt it was significant. So did George, apparently, but he told me Doyle was my first duty just then. Then I wondered, was it George helping Ray to heal? Certainly I should be able to read his personality in the work if it was his. Power, like art, carries the signature of its creator.

"If Bodie was to accept his...if he could be brought to acceptance, could you teach him?"

"Only so much," I admitted. "He needs to find his own teacher, just like Ray did. Could it be you, George?" I asked.

"Och, no, I only have so much energy to give. I use it all in my job. No, the lad will have to find someone else to give him his training."

Before I knew it, it was mid-October. Ray was well along both physically and spiritually, and was involved in some serious meditations on the source of his own power and its form. It was, I hoped, the way into that locked room where Beelzy lived.

Physically, he was fitter than he should have been. In fact, I had to tell him to tone it down a little when other people were around. The hospital staff, used to more conventional rates of recovery, might have gotten curious if Ray seemed too rambunctious. He seemed pleased, though. He was obviously enjoying being alive; drawing an almost sexual pleasure out of the exercises I set him, both physical and metaphysical.

Bodie came by to visit whenever he could, and one evening I stopped by Ray's room to pick up a book I'd forgotten and found them in bed together. Or rather, since I'd made enough noise on the way in to wake the dead, I found Bodie hopping around, trying to pull his pants on and Doyle lying in bed with the sheets over his head.

"Bodie, you look charmingly undignified," I said with malicious glee. I could see the sheets shaking and light laughter drifted out from under them.

"And Ray, you must be feeling better." He pushed the sheet down.

"Randy as hell, if you want to know. Your timing is abysmal."

"I'll be gone in a minute," I promised. "But don't you think this is just a teensy bit dangerous?"

"Colette, I've been in hospital for two months, and not once in my memory has anyone except you or Bodie entered this room between the time they collect the supper trays and the time they bring me my medication. I have to keep him happy, don't I?" he asked with a grin in Bodie's direction.

Bodie's face was still a little flushed and his usually immaculate appearance was softened by mussed hair and misbuttoned shirt. He looked all of sixteen years old. "Do you think he can go home soon?" he asked me.

"Yeah. And it's none too soon, from the look of the two of you." I collected my book. "I'll see what I can do. You boys be careful."

"Close the door when you go," Ray ordered.

A few days later I was having coffee with some of the nurses when Bodie arrived with my mail. There was a letter from Kev saying he'd talked a friend into house- and pet-sitting for us, and he was bringing Tal and Jamie through the gates in time for Samhain and for Jamie's birthday. He said Jamie was lonely without me. What he didn't say was that Jamie was probably being impossible and needed a little maternal discipline. With Jamie, there was always a problem with shared affection, and particularly with sexuality.

He resented my relationship with Kev, but respected it because I demanded that respect. But Kev's relationship with Tal disturbed him deeply. I tried many times to get him to discuss the problem, but he doggedly insisted that there was none. He was protective of Tal and felt that Kev was using him. That Tal looks like a child only made it worse. From what little I knew about Jamie's past, it made perfect sense.

"Anything interesting?" Bodie asked as he helped himself to a cup of coffee.

"My family is coming over for the holiday...Samhain," I added, noting his look of confusion.

"If you'll tell me the date, I can fetch them for you."

"Thanks, babycakes, but I have to meet them myself. I'll tell you what, though, you can come along."

"Don't want to intrude," he said, but he looked pleased.

"Bodie?"

He glanced up and the look of happiness faded as his face closed off.

"Four-oh-five," he said to the woman who stood in front of us. She had to be Ray's mother. She had the look of him - something feral.

"Is he all right?"

"Since he's been in hospital for two months and is still alive," he snapped, "I'd say he's as all right as you can expect from a man who almost died."

I gave him a poke. "Mind your manners," I warned. Then I stood and extended my hand. "I'm Colette, Ray's teacher."

"Joan Doyle." So, she carried a witch name. She feared me, I could feel it.

She shook my hand gingerly. "I'd like to see him."

I took her to Ray's room. Bodie didn't come along. Ray was working with weights. He looked startled.

"What are you doing here?" he blurted.

"I thought..." she turned to me. "Will you leave us for a few minutes?"

"Of course." Just before I left the room I heard Ray say, "She can hear anything you have to say..."

"So that's the infamous Mother Doyle," I said to Bodie as I returned to my chair. "Can't say as I care for her on first meeting. Still, I'm not the one to judge. So, you'll come then?"

"Where? Oh, to the airport..."

"Not exactly," I said, laughing.

She stayed longer than I expected her to, and when she left Ray, she looked as though she'd been crying. Oddly enough, I felt sorry for her. Ray looked perky enough.

"Don't suppose you want to discuss this," I said.

"You're fishing. I laid down the law about me and Bodie and everything."

"Everything?"

"Almost everything. Colette, I've spent too much of my life feeling guilty about the way I've cocked up her life. For chrissake, if she'd been so afraid of the curse, she'd never have let me happen. She gambled with my life and she lost. Now I have to live with that. I'll live with it in my own way."

"So why hasn't she been to see you before this?"

"The usual - guilt. Creature of avoidance, me mum."

"Don't sound so cavalier, my lad. She's still..."

"Don't say it."

"You ready to do some work?" I asked.

"No, I'd rather talk."

"Talk then." I sat on the edge of the bed and watched him move around the room like a caged animal.

"You asked me why this happened," he said, tapping his chest. "Why I let myself be shot." We hadn't spoken of this since the day I arrived. "I said it wasn't my relationship with Bodie...and I still maintain that it's not the whole problem," he added. "but it's part." He lay down on the bed. "I've been thinking a lot about this lately. I remember the day it happened. I lay on the floor, dying, and thinking that Bodie was going to be so upset.

I waited for him, Colette, not for 'help', but for Bodie." He laughed and tipped his head back against the pillow.

"Then while I was in between, he was there with me and I knew he was trying to hold me to life. I should have been grateful, but I wasn't. I resented him for trying to protect me from something that seemed so right, so peaceful. I was feeling sorry for myself and Bodie wouldn't let me. He's always doing that!" He punched the mattress with his fist. "I pulled away from him, Colette, not away from life, and he knows it. That's why he's angry with me. He doesn't understand that I'm not some china doll without a brain in its head. You see, I'm the centre of his life - he stands or falls with me." He was silent for a moment. "And he's the centre of mine, Colette.

"But that can't be the whole problem, can it? I don't want to think it is, anyway. The reason I had a decision to make in the first place was that I needed to want to live this life. You see, sometimes I think about what I am and it scares me. It's not just Beelzy who's a hunter," he said with heavy irony. "I'm a paid killer."

There was no self-pity in him now, only a determination to see this through.

I felt cold suddenly at the look in his eyes.

"Scares you too, doesn't it? Well, that's good. I'm a scary bloke. Only Bodie understands what that's like. I don't want that to be the tie that binds."

"And you think it is?" I asked.

"I'm afraid it is," he admitted.

"You don't figure love into any of this, I see," I said as I walked around the room, straightening things aimlessly.

"That makes it much harder."

"Who said it was easy?" I asked, and he smiled ruefully.

"Right. Want to talk about my mother now we're on a roll?"

"How does Joan fit in?" I asked.

"Guilt and resentment. I didn't think she'd come, she never has before. I don't even know why she came today. She helped me cope, but didn't help me learn what I needed to know. She never held me back but she never pushed me along either. I achieved a sort of stasis. I learned to live with Beelzy, but not how to control him. To be fair, she never made me feel guilty for what I am, but she never made me feel good about it either. And I've felt guilty for years because I feel as though I'm responsible for what she is.

Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"I think so."

"Bodie was the last straw, I guess. I hate to say this, but I think she's upset because I've found happiness despite what I am. She's never been able to do that."

I took his hand and stroked it. "Ray, mothers are only human, though we're inclined to forget that sometimes. It's a long way down off that pedestal, too. But I think you might be right. She's lost a fellow sufferer - a companion in adversity."

"To Bodie, she thinks," he added with a sigh. "So what do I do about it?"

"Live your life, and let Bodie help."

"That's it?"

"You can't live her life, can you? And she can't live yours. You both should stop trying."

"Okay, teacher." He smiled up at me and I kissed his cheek.

"Now I have some news. My family is coming over for the holiday. You up to company?"

"I'd feel upper if I was home," he hinted. "Bake a file into a cake, will you?"

"I'll talk to Doctor Baker when I leave here. Act healthy this afternoon, okay?"

"Done. Hey, I feel better."

"That's why I'm here. You ready to do some work?"

"You bet."

Bodie came along with me to meet Kev and the others. He seemed startled when I told him where we were going. "Rollright Stones? Why?"

"Because that's where I'm meeting them." He looked sceptical so I tried to explain. "There are some places on the earth which are natural power sources. In many, ancient people built monuments - megaliths like Stonehenge. The Whispering Knights is the one Kev uses because it's not well known and therefore more accessible."

"Uses it for what?"

"Travel. A gate-crosser can move from site to site."

"Oh, right!"

"You don't have to believe me. Just take me there and wait and see."

It was dark when we arrived and there was no one about. I'd been here before, of course, but I could tell that Bodie hadn't. "Beautiful," he whispered. "Now what?"

"Now we wait." I sat down on the ground, leaning against one of the stones.

"She's quite mad," he told the autumn moon, "but I love her." He walked around, inspecting the place like a good guard dog. But soon the magic of the site began to work on him. He slowed and really looked at the stones, touching them, moving through them. I wondered if he was trying to feel the power.

I tried to explain how time and space warp slightly in these places. "It's simple magic once you know the way. Kev's been crossing for years."

"Give over. What are we really doing here?"

"Cross my heart..." There was a disturbance at the gate. Bodie didn't notice at first since he didn't know what to look for, but it was there - that fracturing of light and air that happens when someone is travelling through the gates. I stood up and pointed to the wavering light between two of the stones, and his mouth dropped open. "Just watch," I ordered.

The disturbance became more regular, like a pulse beat of light...like birth contractions. It looked like a river flowing between the stones - a river of time and space which only a very few could navigate. Kev was a master gate-crosser.

The first one through was Tal in whiteface. His child's face lit up when he saw me and he signed 'Mama Colette' over and over before he flew into my arms. Then Jamie stepped through, trying to look unimpressed. He wasn't doing much of a job, though. He saw Tal hugging me and his face shut down just the way Bodie's did when he was hurting. "Hullo," he muttered. Kev stepped through and shoved Jamie towards me.

"Oh, sorry, Jamie," he said. The liar. I enfolded Jamie, too. He felt so stiff, so unhappy.

I introduced the youngsters to Bodie, and Tal was enthusiastic, but Jamie just stared at him. Kev greeted Bodie with a hug.

We drove back a little cramped, but Kev and Jamie and I sat in the back and let Tal have the scenic seat...not tat there was much to see at night, but what there was Tal wouldn't miss. He mimed constantly and even Bodie began to understand his language and laughed at the little jokes. I could see that even the hard man was charmed by Tal.

We picked up some supper on the way back to my place and I insisted Bodie stay as well, though he was inclined to leave us alone. We set out a cloth and had a picnic on my floor. Tal, in his way, flirted silently with Bodie.

It meant that he trusted Bodie instinctively and both Kev and I understood, but Jamie didn't, and I could feel an explosion building. I almost tried to stop it, but I realized that it was, perhaps, just what the doctor ordered for everyone. Bodie needed to be drawn out by someone like Tal who had never lost touch with the younger self, and Jamie needed a way to vent the rage that had been building in him for so many years. I was gambling that Bodie would understand that rage, having felt it himself. Tal was doing little bits of sleight-of-hand - pulling French fries out of Bodie's ears and making chicken drumsticks appear out of thin air. He made a breast disappear and Bodie applauded, but then Tal mimed that he was confused and unhappy and that he wanted the chicken breast. He patted his own chest and frowned, patted mine and smiled and I slapped his hands. Patted Kev - a little lower - and gave him a sweet kiss. He tried to pat Jamie's chest, but Jamie had his arms wrapped around himself and refused to be touched.

Finally Tal turned to Bodie and shook his finger at him, mimed that he wanted his chicken back. Bodie was shaking with suppressed laughter. Tal leaped on him and began groping him, tickling him and making him almost weep with laughter.

And then Jamie exploded. He hauled Tal off Bodie with one hand and fetched Bodie a kick that would have broken a rib had it connected. Bodie was too fast. He was the blow coming and caught Jamie's foot, twisting his leg so that Jamie fell with a crash into the remains of the meal. "You pervert, you stay away from him!!" Jamie yelled. Christ, it would have been funny if it wasn't so pitiful. Jamie was seven years younger than Tal. Kev almost got in between them, but I held him back and signalled Tal to keep away as well.

Bodie didn't hit him, but he pinned him down on the greasy paper plates.

"He's not a toy!" Jamie shrieked. It was the most emotion I'd seen from him since we'd met.

"I know that," Bodie said. "I know that. Calm down."

"I hate people like you!"

"People like what?" Bodie demanded.

"You." Jamie couldn't dislodge Bodie no matter how hard he struggled.

"What sort of people am I?"

"You use people like him. He's just a kid."

"I'd never hurt him like that. Jamie, listen to me..." he doubled over suddenly as Jamie's knee caught him in the groin. Careless. But he didn't let go. Jamie managed to roll over and tried to get to his feet, but Bodie tripped him again and he sprawled in the wreckage under Bodie's weight. It was going too far. I could see that Jamie was hyperventilating; scared for himself, now.

"Bodie, let go of him," I ordered. Jamie went limp, ready to accept, as always, whenever he couldn't fight.

But Bodie ignored me and hauled Jamie up to a sitting position. "Listen to me. I know what you're afraid of, Jamie. I'm afraid of it too."

And Jamie listened and believed him.

Tal came up behind Jamie and put his arms around him, holding him tight.

There were tear trails down his white greasepaint. Bodie wiped the food off Jamie's face. "You're not the only one," he whispered.

I pulled Kev out of the room. "Let them sort it out themselves," I told him. "I've missed you anyway."

The living room was clean when we got up the next morning. Tal and Jamie were curled up together on the hide-a-bed, sleeping soundly. A note from Bodie informed me that they'd done the dishes (very funny, Bodie) and washed each other and that everything was okay now. If I needed a chauffeur I was to give him a call via headquarters. My lost lambs...honestly, where did I find them all?

I took the family to the hospital to visit Ray and Tal was fascinated by Ray 's exotic features. He kept signing to Kev to paint Ray (Kev teaches art) and Kev promised that he would one day if Ray was willing.

Bodie arrived around lunchtime and I saw Jamie's face light up only to have that light extinguished when Bodie went to Ray and kissed him before he acknowledged the rest of us. Oh, my poor Jamie, not this heartache too!

"Doctor said I can go home tomorrow," Ray told Bodie. "Said I should take it easy for a while." He grinned up at his partner who smiled back.

"In that case, sunshine, I'm making the most of my free time. I'll take Colette and her family to lunch this afternoon...that is, if they agree," he added with a look at us.

"That'd be lovely," I said. I hadn't missed the look of expectation on Jamie's face. Bodie was sweet with him at lunch, being very careful to pay a lot of attention whenever Jamie decided to enter the conversation, which he did surprisingly often. And some of the things he said! He's seen a good deal more of life than I have...

I saw something else too, something I hadn't realized - Tal was in love with Jamie. Why, I wondered, did life always have to be so complicated?

Later, after we returned to my apartment, Jamie babbled on about Bodie until we were sick of it. I finally had enough and told him so. "I realize he's a paragon, Jamie, but the rest of us would appreciate five minutes on another subject...any subject."

That perfect face of his became sullen...odd how he could never look less than handsome even at his worst. "Sorry," he muttered. "I guess I'm just wound up." He went off into the living room and switched on the television.

Tal watched him go, then got up and followed him. He sat on the couch and snatched a rose out of thin air and held it out to Jamie.

"Oh go away, Tal, and quit that nonsense," Jamie snapped.

I itched to go out there and slap Jamie's pretty face, but Kev caught hold of my hand. "You can't protect them from everything," he said quietly. Tal came back and slipped the rose into a glass of water. He set the glass in front of me and knelt beside me, laying his head in my lap.

"What good is it?" I asked, stroking Tal's soft dark curls. "If I can't help, what's the point of trying?" Did all mothers feel this helpless when their babies were hurt?

Then I heard a voice that I'd never heard before...which I might never hear again. "You give us a safe place, Mama," Tal said. That was all. No amount of coaxing could get him to speak again.

Kev pulled him into his lap. "My boy talks with his face and his body," he said, rocking Tal gently. "He don't have much use for words." He kissed Tal's head. "Your rose has thorns, my baby. Best leave it in the garden."

Tal nodded.

I noticed Jamie standing in the doorway looking at Tal, and felt unaccountably sorry for him. He was the one turning away from love. "I'm sorry," he said to Tal who nodded again. He reached for the rose, but Tal signed that it belonged to Mama Colette now.

In bed that night, I couldn't resist asking Kevin, "Has he ever spoken to you?"

"Just once."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"It was private," he said, pulling the sheet around himself.

"Private?"

"He said, 'I love you.' Now go to sleep."

Bodie called the next morning and asked me to stop by Ray's apartment.

"I have to pick Ray up in an hour," he told me when I arrived, "but I need to know if this place looked all right." He was nervous as a cat, straightening books and polishing the same brass box four times in ten minutes.

"Looks fine. What's the problem? Bodie, why did you call me?"

He sighed and sat down on the couch. "I don't know. I'm just tense, I guess."

"All right, okay...now we're gonna do some of those exercises I taught you."

"Oh no, not..."

"Just do as I say," I ordered, pushing him back. "Now lie down and shut your eyes. Concentrate on your breathing."

After about twenty minutes he looked calmer. "Do you want to talk?" I asked. He shrugged and opened his eyes.

"Maybe I'm worried that he won't be happy here with me. I feel so helpless.

You remember asking me what an outsider is? Well, after careful thought, I can say that an outsider is someone who can't help, who doesn't know how to help."

That struck home with a vengeance, I can tell you. I must have made a derisive gesture, because he sat up suddenly and glared at me.

"It doesn't matter if I've read all the right books, or if you teach me to walk on water like some Liverpool shaman if I can't make the connections.

Six bloody months and I still feel like I fell down the rabbit hole! Now, what do I tell Ray when he comes home and expects support?"

"The truth."

"And how will he feel?"

"Guilty," I blurted before I could stop myself.

"Too bloody right. Oh God," he rubbed his forehead. "There goes all that relaxation up the spout. I'd better go. He'll be waiting at the door with a suitcase and a nurse. Do you want to come to supper?" he asked as he pulled on his jacket.

"Wouldn't you rather be alone?"

"Frankly? No. I'll fetch back some Chinese take-away. We'll party.

Tomorrow's Halloween."

"Ohmygosh!" I stopped short in the doorway and he ran into me. "Bodie, I'm coming along to the hospital. I want to talk to Ray."

"Why?" He pushed me out of the apartment and into the elevator.

"Tomorrow's our New Year's. If Beelzy is going to manifest himself, tomorrow will be the time. Has he mentioned..."

"Nothing." He opened the car door for me. His mouth was set in a grim line.

We drove the whole way to the hospital without another word, but as we parked, he said, "I'm angry."

"Why?"

"Because I don't understand. Because I'm an outsider and it hurts our loving. I'm angry because there's a whole world of experience I can't share with him."

"Won't share," I corrected. There, it was out.

"That's not so!"

"When you touched something alien in yourself, you ran from it, Bodie. You' re closed now. You won't try." I could see from his expression that I'd scored a point. So he was conscious of what had happened, to some small degree at least.

"Let's go fetch Ray," was all he said.

"Colette! I didn't know you were coming along." Ray looked wonderful for a man who had nearly died sixty days ago.

"I'm going to talk to the doctor," Bodie announced and left the room.

"I want to ask you something, Ray. Are you feeling anything that might lead you to think you're due for a change?"

"No, nothing, why? What day is it?"

"Tomorrow is Samhain," I told him.

"Not really? But then I'd know by now. It must mean I've done it, eh?" He was grinning widely.

"Or it could mean that you're still too ill. The body protects itself, Ray.

You couldn't change in times of illness of injury."

"I remember you saying that." He looked downcast. "And here I was thinkin' I'd made such great progress."

"You have, pet, wonderful progress. In fact, I've never seen anyone catch on so fast...or heal so fast."

"Yeh, weird, innit? I've wondered about that. Not all me, is it?"

"Could be. Then again," I said, sitting on the bed, "could be help from the outside."

Bodie poked his head in. "Doc wants to talk to you, Colette. I think he wants to hire you. Shall we wait?"

"No, you go on. The way Ray's been pacing, he'll wear himself out before he gets home. I'll see you both later." I got up to go and Ray grabbed me and hugged me very hard.

"Thanks, Mum," he whispered, and released me. The door swung open and a nurse wheeled in a chair.

"Oh, no...Bodie!!"

When I left they were arguing about Ray being wheeled down to the car.

Later that evening, we all went over to Ray's apartment. Ray looked a little tired, but happy...I could feel it, a deep-down contentment that hadn't been there since the day we'd met at The Dancing Maiden.

True to his word, Bodie provided a wonderful Chinese meal. He spent a lot of time seeing to Ray's needs, much to Jamie's chagrin.

Jamie volunteered to help clear the table. I don't know what went on in the kitchen while the rest of us sat in front of the fireplace and talked, but when the clearing up was finished, Bodie came out and sat beside Ray, who immediately curled up against him, and Jamie sat beside me, staring straight into the fire.

"Bodie, do you mind if we celebrate tomorrow night?" Ray asked.

"Whatever you want, you know that."

"Do you want to join us? Don't say yes on my account," he warned. "I need you to want it."

"In that case, no."

"Bodie, Jamie's not staying either," Kev said. "Why don't the two of you go to a movie?" I dug my elbow into Kev's ribs rather hard.

"If he wants the company," Bodie said without looking up.

"Sure, why not?" Jamie asked, equally offhand.

"Why'd you do that?" I asked later that night as we were getting ready for bed. "You know how Jamie feels about Bodie. You shouldn't encourage it."

Kev bounced into the bed and said, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder and familiarity breeds contempt." He began to leaf through a magazine he found on the nightstand.

"Thank you, oh purveyor of platitudes. Sill wasn't a good idea."

"Loan me your glasses, Colette. These old eyes is tired."

I threw the case at him and went off to wash.

Before I went back to the bedroom, I checked on the boys. Tal was curled up in a tight little ball, fast asleep. Jamie was wide awake and looked unhappy.

"Want to talk about it, baby?"

"Nothing to tell."

"Okay, have it your way." I brushed blond silk out of his face. "You need a haircut," I said. "Jamie...you do know I love you?"

He turned away. "Sure," he said, his voice unsteady.

"It's good to be able to cry."

"We can't ever have what we want," he whispered. "Not every."

I turned his face towards mine. "We can usually have just what we want most, Jamie - that's what I've tried to teach you. Is it Bodie you want, of is it to be loved by someone strong and understanding? If that's all you really want, you don't have to look farther than this bed." I waited for that to sink in, then I kissed him. "Remember, once you set your heart on something, you'll get it. Be careful. Life is full of surprises.

Goodnight, sweetheart."

"G'night."

"Feel better?" Kev asked as I came back into the bedroom.

"I beg your pardon, oh wise and holy one?"

"Girl, you have a mean tongue in your head."

"Stings a bit, does it?" I teased as I got into bed and rolled up against him. "You know, I've missed having you around. Put that magazine down and make love to your woman before she goes elsewhere for it."

He chuckled softly, threw the magazine on the floor and turned off the light. "I am still much in demand for my legendary virility," he announced before he grabbed me. I began to laugh.

The next day I ran out and bought all the things we'd need for the ceremony - candles, wine, fruit and some little teacakes. We went over about five. Bodie and Jamie left and we got started.

We made a nice altar in front of the fireplace, decorated with leaves that Ray had collected. I usually leave the ceremony to Kev since I'm not priestess trained and his sense of the dramatic is greater than mine. In a small group, he can make a ceremony seem large.

First he walked a circle around us - Kev's very physical and he uses his body as an energy channel. Then he led us in a meditation. "It's possible to move in other planes," he said and I felt myself tense, knowing he meant to guide us out of our bodies. I wasn't sure if Ray would accept this. His own death and rebirth, brief as it had been, might still be too fresh in his mind. "In a few moments you'll move into another life space and experience something important."

I trust Kev. He'll push only when he knows it's for the best. I let myself drop down into a deep trance state.

"Take a deep breath. You're filling with air. You're becoming lighter and lighter as you inhale. You're starting to rise. Hold that breath. You're floating up to the ceiling. And exhale, slowly. Now feel yourself floating back down, down..."

I went with his voice and felt myself rise and fall like waves on a shore.

"Inhale, slowly, deeply. Fill yourself up with air and rise. Upwards, upwards. You've reached the ceiling - it can't stop you. Go through, go through."

With a mental shove I broke through and found myself in my mother's kitchen in the place I grew up. "Mama?" She was sitting at the table reading the Bible. A cup of coffee sat at her elbow.

"Baby, it's good to see you. Come and sit."

"I can't stay." I sat beside her.

"I know. 'bout ready to move on myself. They's other lives to live. But you rest now. That's why you're here. And Mama'll sing to you like she used to."

Her voice rose in an old hymn - the one they sang at her funeral. Her voice was as rich and sweet as I remembered. I'd thought I'd never hear her sing again, but in the years since she passed, I've heard her voice so often in dream, and in moments like this when I find my way back to her. Mama is my safe place.

"...coming down, slowly, slowly, you're through the ceiling, coming down, floating down real easy. You touch the floor. Feel the earth's energy flowing through you."

Kev's voice welcomed me back. I felt refreshed; new.

"I want you all to come back to me now. Take a minute to open your eyes and think about where you've been."

Tal stretched and sat up. He was smiling. I rolled over and checked Ray who was still lying on the floor with his eyes shut.

"Ray?"

"It's okay, I'm here. Everything's okay." He sat up and opened his eyes.

"You all back with me? Good. Let's start." Kev held up his hands. "This is the New Year. This is the time when the worlds are close and the veil between them is thin. The dying king has passed through the gates and the dead walk with us now, revealing the truth of life - in our end is our beginning. So it is with all life and death." He made the invocation.

Then: "Reach into the darkness, into the night.

All men live, all men die.

Reach into the darkness, into the night.

This man lives, this man dies.

He held his hands out to me.

"Reach into the darkness, into the night."

I took his hands and stepped out of the circle. "This woman lives, this woman dies," I responded as he blindfolded me. I heard him repeat the chant for the others and heard Ray say, "This man lives, this man dies," with a catch in his voice. Kev spoke the responses for Tal as he blindfolded him.

"Earth receive an honoured guest As each of us is laid to rest.

Let the human vessel lie Emptied of its poetry."

Though the words and rhythms belonged to another man, Kevin made it our chant for this night.

"Follow, sun-child, follow right, To the bottom of the night With an unconstraining voice Still persuade us to rejoice.

In the deserts of the heart Let the healing fountain start, And in the prison of our days Teach your children how to praise."

There was a pause while he wrapped something around our wrists, binding us together. "The ship sails on," he said and touched my shoulder.

"The ship sails on," I repeated again and again.

"Waves rise and fall," he said and I heard Ray pick up the thread.

"Into the west," Kev said, building the words into a hypnotic chant. After a few minutes of this, I could feel the pitch of the waves, could see the green shores.

"We are in sight of the land of Summer, step into the sea, step onto the shore and be free."

I walked through the surf to the green and golden place he'd led us to. I pulled free of the binding.

"Nothing binds you here, nothing binds you here."

I removed the blindfold.

"Your tasks are completed, your battles over. Here you are healed, here you may rest...here you will grow young again. This is the isle of apples. This is the heart of light. Sleep now and be comforted."

And I sank to my knees in the grass and smelled the sweet tang of apples in the cool breeze.

"The gate is opening, death is no barrier for He is the Lord of the Dance of Shadows, King of Dreams, Keeper of the gates of Life and Death."

Kev handed me a bowl of water. "Look into the water, sister, into the Well of Life."

I saw things. I saw Ray and Bodie. I saw Jamie and Tal and Kev and myself.

I saw a gypsy girl...I saw a generation wearing the faces of those I loved.

I saw Him - Lord of the Forest - on His black stallion. His black hair whipped around His face as He rode under the full moon. His eyes were as green as the see and His teeth were white and sharp. He was beautiful and terrible. Who was He hunting?

Ray...

Dear Lord, not Ray.

His red-eyed hounds crashed through he forest towards the place where Ray waited. A man stood in the shadows beside Ray. I could not see his face.

With a shout, the Lord stopped the dogs. He studied the two men. Then he bared his sharp, white teeth. "You," He rasped, pointing to the shadowed man.

"This is the cauldron of life. Through it, you shall be reborn. Seed to fruit to seed - know this and lose your fear. The wheel is turning.

Blessed Be."

I was back. I was sitting in Ray's living room, holding his hand. What was it I had seen? I looked over at Ray and he smiled at me.

Kev passed out wine and cakes, and encouraged us to talk about our experiences.

"It was...different," Ray admitted. "It was more intense than any other ritual I've been involved in. Not that there have been many," he added with a laugh. "I saw something..." He scowled. "I don't know what it meant."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Kev asked.

"Not just yet. Let me think about it for a while."

Kevin was looking tired. "I'm gonna get this woman to lead us if it's the last thing I do," he told us.

I was about to protest, but Kev shook his finger at me. "No excuses. If there's God and Goddess in each of us, there's Priest and Priestess too.

You're just shy about getting up in front of other people and feeling like a fool."

"You got it," I said, nibbling on one of the cakes. I was disturbed by what I had seen, but I remembered that visions can come out of the past as easily as the future. And a vision is what may be, not what will be.

It was past ten when Bodie and Jamie returned. There was something in both of their faces that unnerved me. What had happened between them?

Bodie sat down beside Ray. "Good ceremony, lover?" he asked, and Ray rubbed his face against Bodie's by way of greeting.

"Lovely. One of the nicest."

"You want a good ceremony, go the The Green King outside of Inverness," Kev told them. "There's a Frenchwoman there who is a trained Priestess. She's very strong and very creative."

Jamie was sitting outside the circle looking forlorn. "What did you see?"

I asked.

"Nothing," Bodie said quickly. "We went to supper and we talked."

"Can we go home now?" Jamie asked. "I'm tired."

"Ray must be tired too," Kev observed. He got up and began to dress and Tal and I did the same.

"What're you doing for Jamie's birthday?" Ray asked.

"It's up to Jamie," I said, looking over at him.

"I'd just as soon forget it," he mumbled.

"Forget a birthday? You only have so many of them," said Ray.

"Cake and ice cream, hunh? And a load of relatives with gifts?" Jamie sounded bitter. "Not a chance. I've never had a party; no reason to start now."

"There's every reason. If not for you, Jamie, then for the people who love you." Kev pushed Jamie's hair back out of his face very gently.

"If you want to do something, I'll go along with it," Jamie said ungenerously.

"Then we'll have a party," Ray said.

"Oh boy," Jamie replied.

"So, what do you suppose went on tonight with Jamie and Bodie?" Kev asked later. I was trying hard to sleep, so I didn't respond. "Think they slept together?"

"Your prurience shocks me," I snapped. "Go to sleep."

"Don't you wonder?"

"Maybe, but I never want to know. Leave it, Kev."

"I just want him to work Bodie out of his system, is all."

The birthday party went about as well as could be expected with Jamie determined not to enjoy himself. I wondered why I put up with him, but I suppose it was because he needed me so much.

Ray gave him a book - The Little Bach Book - because I'd told him how much Jamie loved Bach and Glenn Gould. Kev told him his gift was at home and he could open it as soon as they went back. "Any time," Jamie said quietly. I 'd wanted to give him the same thing I'd given Tal on his eighteenth birthday - a silver pentacle on a chain - but I knew he wouldn't like that, so I bought him a sweater and felt as though I'd shortchanged him. Bodie gave him a book of poetry and something that I didn't understand - a battered old toy soldier. It must have had some meaning because Jamie smiled a little when he saw it.

Tal made an empty hands gesture. But then he plucked a box out of the air and handed it to Jamie. Inside was the pentacle I'd given him. It was his most prized possession and Jamie knew it. "I can't," he protested, but Tal refused to take it back. Then he did something which Jamie wouldn't understand, but which Kev and I knew - he made a gesture of protection. He was sending the pentacle out to protect Jamie. It was all he could give.

They left a few days later, and I was sorry to see them go, but relieved as well. I promised to be back for Christmas.

Now that he was at home, Ray seemed to progress even faster. There was no question in my mind that he could prevent Beelzy from manifesting now, but it wasn't until the beginning of December that I realized I couldn't teach him any more. On that day Beelzy greeted me at the door, catted around for about fifteen minutes and then changed back into a smug Ray. "I've been doing it all morning. I just woke up this morning and knew I could do it.

Colette, I feel wonderful!" He grabbed me and danced me around the living room. "I feel marvellous!"

"So do I...but there's no reason for me to stay any longer now." His face fell.

"I'm used to having you around," he admitted. "Won't you stay for a bit?"

"I'm homesick, baby. I want to see San Francisco again. I want to sleep in my own bed again."

"Yeah...I reckoned you'd say that. How can I thank you?"

"By going on and learning all you can...and by helping Bodie. He's hidden his magic away, but it's inside of him and it's strong. I'm afraid for him."

"Whatever you say. Colette, do you think I can change into anything else?"

"Oh, I should think so. But do yourself a favour and stick to Beelzy for a while until you get used to doing it at will. Too much all at once isn't a good idea."

He promised to take it easy.

I said goodbye to Bodie the next day when I went to CI5 headquarters.

"I'll miss you, Colette."

"And I you, Bodie. You will take care of yourself, won't you? Please?"

"Have done all these years," he teased. "But yes, I will."

"And keep an open mind?"

"For you, anything." Then he kissed me goodbye.

I went to see George last. "It's that time," I announced.

"Ah, Colette." He rose and greeted me with a kiss. "Your work here is finished, then?"

"For a time. He'll be all right."

"And Bodie?"

"I don't know," I confessed. "You'll just have to wait and see."

"Well, thank you for what you've achieved in so short a time." He handed me an envelope. There was an airline ticket in it. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"I'd rather use the gates," I said.

He looked at me and smiled. "There's one keyed here. Saves money as well as time. Do you have your luggage with you?"

"Yes." I returned the ticket.

"Good, then come with me." He led me down into the basement, through a warren of disused rooms, stopping in front of a locked one. "This is it,"

he said, unlocking the door. "Key it and be off. There'll be a check drawn in U.S. funds waiting for you at the hospital. I shall miss you," he said, softly.

Before I left, I kissed him once more. Then I stepped through the gate.

It was good to be back home, much as I loved London. Kev was sitting in my living room listening to Villa Lobos when I got in. "Hullo lover, where're the boys?"

"Upstairs screwing. Haven't been doing much else since they got back.

Hullo yourself, gorrrrrjusssssss." He pulled me into his arms and kissed me hello very nicely.

I thought about it much later, before I fell asleep. Jamie and Tal. I remembered Bodie saying to me how he wished they'd find each other; that it would be easier for everyone if they did. I never thought it would happen, and hardly believed it when Kev had called me in London to tell me about it.

Bodie, I said to the handsome image inside my head. Did you do this?

Thank you, I whispered.

--Samhain 1981

---

...Continued in Part 2...

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